


your heart is as black

by littleghostantenna



Category: Buzzfeed Unsolved (Web Series)
Genre: (eventually) - Freeform, Alternate Universe - Detectives, Alternate Universe - Serial Killers, Angst, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Detective Noir, M/M, Medical Torture, Murder Husbands, Period-Typical Homophobia, Period-Typical Racism, Ricky Goldsworth Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-26
Updated: 2018-10-07
Packaged: 2019-06-16 18:07:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 3
Words: 25,130
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15442830
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/littleghostantenna/pseuds/littleghostantenna
Summary: C.C. Tinsley's finally done it: He put notorious serial killer (and his close personal friend) Ricky Goldsworth behind bars. Unfortunately, Goldsworth is transferred to an asylum and ends up in the hands of Dr. Fear.It takes one visit for Tinsley to realize he's going to have to remedy the situation.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DurchVerse](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DurchVerse/gifts).



> This is based on @durchinmultiverse's incredible [BFU crime saga](https://durchinmultiverse.tumblr.com/tagged/bfu-crime-saga) art and concepts, and it leans on them to skip right to that good good Ricky Goldsworth Whumped and Rescued content. 
> 
> I'm setting it in a dubious Crime Noir version of the 50s/60s. 
> 
> Title is from Melody Gardot's song "Your Heart Is as Black as Night."
> 
> Apologies to Ricky for the mostly-silent introduction; he'll get to talk a lot more next chapter! 
> 
> I'm including the Rape/Non-Con warning just to be on the safe side; there won't be any scenes where it's shown, and it's open to interpretation whether Fear has ever acted on those impulses with regard to Ricky.

_“We live in a primitive time—don’t we, Will?—neither savage nor wise. Half measures are the curse of it. Any rational society would either kill me or give me my books.”_  
-Thomas Harris, _Red Dragon_

 

* * *

 

C.C. would remember this moment as a lot of things, but most of all—selfishly—he would remember it as the moment he was sure that Ricky Goldsworth was going to kill him. Not afraid (he wasn't afraid of anything just then, free-floating with shock), not wondering if it might happen (the question had been open for their entire relationship, such as it was). For the first time, he was sure.

Not because it was his fault Ricky was here, although it was. Not even because C.C. was about to walk out and leave him there, although that was also true. He would kill C.C. for seeing him like this.

The room was a cement cube. C.C. imagined the deliberation that would have gone into that, maybe the trial and error. Give him stone walls, and Ricky bashes someone's head against them; give him padded ones, and he prizes the canvas open, hides things inside, works the cloth to ribbons and wraps them around someone's throat. C.C. half-hoped they'd tried all that, and he knew he was still letting Ricky get to him (two more bodies before they got this desperate, just two more lives), but this...

The room was bare, but the ropes were padded, two of them coiling from the ceiling and hooked to the leather cuffs that laced down Ricky's forearms clear to the elbow. They looked medieval, not cruel but out of place, almost silly. To see them, C.C. felt he should offer to take Ricky out for a jolly hunt with the falcons.

And they weren't enough, shouldn't have been enough. They were an insane half-measure. If Ricky was cooperating, he didn't need them; if he wasn't, they shouldn't have held him.

None of that was the problem, though. None of that would get C.C. killed.

He'd seen Ricky lots of ways—every way, maybe, everything from bloodspattered in an alley to waltzing in the Ritz to smiling in a sun-bright kitchen—but never crying. Never any way Ricky hadn't let C.C. see him.

He'd lost weight. A thin white hospital tunic and matching trousers hung limp on him, the shirt pasted to his collarbone with sweat. His feet were bare. His hair was filthy, limp and sticking to his forehead. He was standing, but just barely; just because his arms were hoisted too high by the chain for him to sit. His eyes were huge and dark and he was crying, soundless and slow. He didn't look up when the door opened.

C.C. couldn't breathe.

“Let him down,” he snapped. Forgot he didn't have any right to be here, that he had to keep the doctor happy, had to play whatever game Fear cared to set in motion or there would be no game at all. “Let him—give him some more slack, can't you?”

“He's a very dangerous man,” Fear said. He didn't sound like he was issuing a warning so much as making a fond observation, and he stayed just outside the door, turning some controls. “But of course you know that, detective. Your risks are your own.”

Slack dropped from the ceiling and the chains went limp. Ricky's arms dropped with them, hitting his side, and he swayed on his feet. He didn't move beyond that. His face didn't change. C.C. had never seen Ricky this still; he was always doing five things at once, delighted by three of them and furious about the other two.

“Gold—” C.C. stepped closer. Five years of practice, even coated with nine months' rust, kept his body's guard up even if his head was a wreck; he didn't get in arm's reach. “Goldsworth.”

Ricky was shaking. His eyes darted, C.C. thought—he even thought Ricky looked at his face, but his pupils were blown huge, his eyes black as a shark's and swimming wet. It was hard to be sure where he was looking.

“What, uh, what treatment—the difference…” C.C. flapped his hand. “In his demeanor is, is really something else…” He tried to keep his voice even. _They gave him a lobotomy,_ he thought. There was a certain relief in it, for a second. Ricky wasn't in there anymore. This wasn't him, filthy and crying in the dark.

“It is of my own devising,” Fear said, slowly. “A series of injections to induce... remorse. Empathy. I'm sure you'll understand when I say I am not yet ready to share the precise drugs involved. Once I prove my methods, though... once young Mr. Goldsworth's case has been published in a reputable medical journal and replicated…” He sighed, a happy, humming little sound that hit C.C. in the spine like a goddamn bullet. Ricky did that, Ricky made just that noise when one of his schemes was falling perfectly into place. “Detective Tinsley, I am in the process of chemically replacing the human soul.”

Ricky's chin snapped up. He jolted back, as if C.C. had just appeared there, sudden as a ghost in front of him. C.C. couldn't stand it, couldn't bear for Ricky to see him and be afraid. He reached forward, not really to touch—he'd never initiated contact between them, had always left that to Ricky even in their best moments—but at least to stay near.

“C.C.” Ricky slurred the name, _see-sssssee_.

“Yeah, pal.” He crossed the invisible line and stretched his hand out farther. Arm's reach.

Ricky staggered forward, bypassed C.C.'s hand. He dropped himself into C.C.'s arms. His head nestled under C.C.'s chin; with him barefoot, and with C.C. in boots, he fit there without so much as bending his neck. His arms curled under C.C.'s coat, fingers into his shirt. His heart pounded against C.C.'s ribcage. His hipbone dug into the crease of C.C.'s thigh. He let C.C. hold him.

This was when C.C. knew he was going to die. He had to get Ricky out. And once Ricky was out, he would remember that C.C. had stolen this, sneaked away with something he had no right to. Seen something not for him.

C.C. put one careful arm around Ricky's back. He combed through his hair with the other hand, one finger at a time, skipping the knots. His breath shook with the effort of keeping every movement gentle. Ricky had always seemed made mostly of surface—smooth suits, gleaming smiles, glowing skin. All armor, down to the core. Now he felt raw, wide open. C.C. could feel his vertebrae, his skull. “Rick? You with me, bud?”

“His awareness fades quickly,” Fear said. He was closer now at C.C.'s back, and C.C.'s shoulders itched to turn. “I'm afraid the process is not yet perfected. For now, he is still a monster. Only he is in pain, unable to focus, subject to hallucinations, and... mm. Suggestible.”

C.C. had wanted this. Ever since he met Ricky, he wanted this. What they have is all lies and blades and double-cons. Grand dares, ploys. A game one of them will have to lose. Over and over he'd wanted to say, _Time out. Let me hold you._

He was loose, pliant in C.C.'s arms. He fell closer when Fear patted C.C.'s shoulder, and his eyes squeezed shut.

“It is not my goal, the state he's in now.” Fear stayed just out of sight, and C.C. couldn't turn to face him with Ricky like this. His voice dropped. It twisted, grating, hitting C.C. late. A confidence, an insinuation. “But isn't he sweet, when he's like this.”

There was some deep rock-stubborn core in C.C., and it finally gave, when those words hit it. Ricky had chipped away at it for five years. It was only fair, C.C. guessed, that Ricky was the reason it melted to magma.

If he'd been allowed a weapon in the asylum—if he'd had one on him, right then—

But that would be a Ricky move. C.C. wasn't going to walk out of Pennhurst with the most recognizable man in America under his arm by acting like the guy who'd gotten himself locked up there in the first place.

“Not that sweet,” he said. “You were talking about how he attacked an orderly, weren't you, doc?”

Fear chuckled. “Tomorrow is another day. Richard will endeavor to make it a better one. Won't you, my dear?”

Ricky's head moved against C.C.'s neck. C.C. tightened his fingers, holding him still, because that felt like a nod. _Silent_ and _amenable_ weren't words C.C. had ever had cause to apply to Ricky Goldsworth.

"This treatment you cooked up is..." He whistled, too loud for the space. Maybe if he played up the _hick detective in over his head_ bit. "Really something, doc. I wouldn't recognize him. Tell you what, though, I get a case of the nerves underground like this. Any chance Goldsworth and I could take a turn around those rolling hills?”

Fear circled around, finally, to where C.C. could see him. He looked taken aback. He didn't say no, and C.C. pegged a lot about him right then and there—he wasn't a guy who liked to say _no_ , not when he could keep you trying. The answer was no, sure; C.C. wasn't ever going to get permission to take Ricky out of this basement. But Fear would keep him chasing down permission slips and sitting in on therapy sessions for years before he'd admit as much. “That will depend on Richard's behavior,” he said, rallying. “And on the Director's goodwill. With regular visits to impress your dedication on him, and with a better track record from our patient, I see no reason he should be denied fresh air.”

“Right, that's what I figured. Why deny him fresh air! Good for the—good for the lungs, I always say.” Ricky smelled sour, like old sweat, and faintly acidic. Vomit, maybe. His hair stuck to C.C.'s fingers, thick with grease. C.C. held him a little tighter. It was possible Ricky would kill him just for seeing him this filthy, forget the rest, he thought wryly.

“And there would be very little danger of his escaping,” Fear continued, words coming slower now. Getting to the main course, for him. “Especially under the eye of the very man who caught him.”

“He turned himself in,” C.C. said. “He was... remarkably clear about that, I thought. A little repetitive, even, if you followed the whole trial.”

“But still, it's an open secret, detective. That you had him.” He paused just long enough. “Dead to rights, isn't that the phrase?”

Ricky's pulse thrummed in his temple, right under C.C.'s forefinger. His heart jackhammered harder every time the doctor spoke.

“I did put some of the pieces together.” Ricky was cold. It took C.C. a while to pick up on it. He was used to Ricky running hot. His skin felt clammy. This cell was chilly, a slow creeping cold, and he spent all his time here. Dressed in thin cotton. Not a blanket in sight. He rubbed Ricky's back. He couldn't do this in front of a normal doctor, he thought. At least they could all be fucked up in front of each other. “In fact, I'm thinking of writing a book about it.” It was the same ploy he used the first time he talked to Ricky. He had a funny face. Paste a gormless expression on it, talk like a PI who believed he had the great American crime novel in him, thought he could wipe the very memory of Capote off the best sellers. He could usually steer this cart well enough to stay between the lines: _too dumb to worry about_ but still _smart enough to be worth talking to_.

It didn't actually work on Ricky. C.C. thought it did, at the time. He thought it worked on Fear, now. The patronizing smile pointed to yes.

“I was hoping to get some more outta this guy.” He combed through Ricky's hair, tried to use the motion to disguise his knuckles trailing along Ricky's jaw. His hair wasn’t long. With some shampoo and a comb, he'd look the way he always used to. It wouldn't even take a razor. Someone had already shaved him, as recently as this morning; his skin was perfectly smooth. “Maybe even some real _Cold Blood_ heart-to-hearts. But it looks like therapy is working too well for that.” He wanted to be calm, for Ricky—which was insane; this would be the first time 'calm' was a quality Ricky wanted from him—but his skin crawled. “He's never been this quiet in his life. I'm starting to wonder if anybody's home, you know? Just me standing around in an empty living room with my tea and crackers, no one to share them with. It's a sad picture.”

“Of course, detective. A perfectly natural concern for a man in your position, and one I think I can address.” He took a silver cigarette case from his pocket, offered it to C.C. before he lit one himself.

C.C. could think of stupider things to do than hold a lit cigarette in easy reach of an imprisoned Ricky Goldsworth, but it’d be a lot of mental heavy lifting for a short damn list. He shook his head.

“I would very much appreciate your insights into Richard's last few years, as I develop my case study. I hope you won't find me impertinent, but having read between the lines of the newspaper stories, I think you were his closest friend, detective. Naturally I have ample information about his childhood, but your insights about the years I missed could be the key to a complete picture.”

“His childhood? You do?” C.C. had practically had to break into government buildings to squeeze some real details out of Ricky's half-mythologized grew-up-in-an-orphanage-oh-for-no-reason-really, self-made millionaire story.

“Oh yes.” Fear shook his head. “I advised against his being released even then, but I was just an intern, and you know how convincing Richard can be.” He exhaled smoke and for a moment C.C. couldn’t smell anything else. “He was such a charming boy. Dangerous, from the very beginning, but... charming. At any rate, I hope you see how helpful we could be to each other. In return for your insights into Richard's life outside these walls, and perhaps some help managing his behavior—he does seem terribly attached to you, detective…”

C.C. thought Fear was about to touch Ricky. And he thought if he did, he'd kill Fear and have to go to prison, which would be useless and dumb. _Them's the breaks, baby,_ he would say if he stood any chance of making Ricky laugh.

But Fear didn’t. He only looked at how Ricky was plastered to C.C. and smiled with something ugly and hot in his eyes.

“In return for that, yes,” Fear resumed. “I can certainly see my way clear to granting you more constructive interviews. It wouldn't be practical to keep Richard on a full dose at all times. You would be welcome to speak to him when he's in his own mind.”

“I appreciate that.” C.C. could feel this winding down, in Fear's glance at the door and his watch now that he had a deal all but signed and sealed. His ribs were tight around his lungs. He needed a plan, he absolutely needed a plan. He couldn't take Ricky with him right now, he couldn't do anything to Fear right now. So what he would have to do was pry Ricky off him, and walk away, and leave him with Fear. “You're a busy guy, doc,” he said, floundering. “I can show myself out, if you have to get back to your other patients. Me and Ricky will be alright here for a minute.”

“Oh, dear me, no, Detective Tinsley. The Director would have my head.” He put a hand out, and again C.C. thought he might touch Ricky—pull him away, even, _and if he does I'm going to kill him, I'm going to snap his goddamn neck_ , but he only patted C.C.'s shoulder again and walked to the door, where he waited pointedly. “In the future, once we've established a working relationship, I'll be able to better evaluate whether your spending time alone with Richard might be therapeutic for him. I wouldn't want to impede his progress.”

“Sure. Sure, you're the doctor. I guess I didn't think that one through too well.” C.C. couldn’t do it. He couldn't even reach Ricky's hands, fisted under his coat. He'd have to push him off. “Rick,” he said helplessly, bent even closer.

Ricky’s head turned, a quick deliberate movement, the most like himself C.C. had seen him yet. And Fear didn’t see it; Ricky was hidden from him by C.C.’s shoulders. His cheek pressed to C.C.’s, lips right against C.C.’s ear. “Out,” he whispered. He slurred it, dragging the T over rocky ground, but he sounded like himself. Imperious, already sure C.C. would do it.

 _Thank God, oh thank God_ , C.C. thought—and, _He’s playing me again, this is all a fucking bit_ —and _OK, then. Guess I’m falling for it._

Ricky, even as a con, had never asked C.C. for help.

“I promise,” he whispered back. “I swear. I’m taking you out of here.”

Ricky fell back a step on his own. It felt like he ripped something out of C.C. on the way.

C.C. waved, still instinctively trying to make Ricky laugh. “See you soon!”

Even if he’d gotten an eyeroll out of him, C.C. wouldn’t have been able to see it. He had a feeling, though, that it had just fallen flat.

* * *

 

C.C. figured taking a walk around the grounds was a mistake. He wasn’t going to spot an escape route on a casual stroll, and he definitely stood to make Fear suspicious if the doctor heard he hadn’t left straight away. His interest was supposed to be in Ricky, locked up, not in the entire establishment.

He did it anyway, because he couldn’t go back through the gates yet. Get in his car and drive away.

Patients and orderlies wandered, and the dress code wasn’t all that well enforced; he stood out, in his trenchcoat and hat, but not too badly. Not enough for anyone to question him. He headed behind one of the less imposing buildings, and he made it there before he bent over and threw up his lunch.

It turned out not to be a mistake, the walk. It turned out to be the best decision he’d made all day.

“You dropped this,” someone said apologetically.

C.C. quit trying to spit the foul taste from his mouth and jerked upright, blinking to clear his vision. A blurry gentleman was holding out a gray blob which proved to be his hat. “Thank you,” he said. “Mighty neighborly.” He took it, and was still trying to get his hair to behave when he recognized the man. “Mr. Lim?”

“Hello, Detective Tinsley.” Lim had always made C.C. look socially graceful without even trying. His wave was entirely genuine.

C.C. swiped a hand across his mouth. “What—what on Earth are you doing here, Lim? They put ‘robbing museums’ in the DSM?”

“Oh, I don’t know, my lawyer had this whole big… I wasn’t listening to him, to be honest? It was boring. Nobody ever really explained it to me anyway, he just talked to the judge for _ever_...” He shrugged. “It’s nice to see you, though!”

“Is it?” It was hard not to take Steven Lim at face value. He was very genuine. C.C. just had to hold onto some doubts, given that he’d apparently gotten Lim locked up here too.

“Sure! We’re not mad at you for catching us, oh my gosh! We do our thing, you do your thing… We shouldn’t have burgled that old lady who hired you, I guess. She was overdramatic, I think. I mean it was just a necklace.”

“She did want it back very badly.” It had been one of C.C.’s least favorite cases. He’d needed Mrs. Cargill’s paycheck pretty desperately at the time, but she was unpleasant and it was just a necklace. “Between you and me, it was ugly, though, right?”

“It probably looked better to people in the fourteenth century,” Lim said conscientiously. “It was the hip thing back then. They did their best.”

“Lim… I gotta ask you.”

“How we got past the guard dogs!”

“No, about… not about your heists. About now.” He pointed vaguely at all the buildings in view.

Lim’s face closed. He crossed his arms. “It’s fine. I’d rather be with Andrew and Adam, that’s all, and they went to jail.”

“About Dr. Fear,” C.C. persisted.

Lim stared at him, face blank. “He’s not my doctor. I don’t have to see him, he’s not—he’s busy. I have a different doctor.”

“But he’s the head doctor,” C.C. said. “You must have—”

“He’s busy. He’s still busy.” Lim clutched his elbows, hugging his arms tight to his stomach. “He’ll be busy for a long time with Goldsworth…” He leaned closer to C.C. “One of the orderlies told me I better keep my head down and hope Goldsworth keeps him occupied—” He broke off. “Andrew and Adam would have gotten me out by now if you hadn’t locked them up too.”

C.C. took a second to breathe and swallow hard. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry you’re here with him. I’m going to fix it.” He reached out, suddenly, and grabbed Lim’s shoulders. “Oh, shit. I know how I’m going to fix it. If I didn’t have hell’s own breath right now, I’d kiss you.”

“That’s okay, I actually prefer for you not to kiss me,” Lim said, perplexed.

“You’re going to be alright. I’ll be back. Just don’t tell anyone we had this conversation. And… stay away from Fear, yeah, bud?”

“Cross my heart.” Lim frowned. “Wait, why are you here, Detective Tinsley?”

“Oh, you know.” C.C. watched an orderly from the corner of his eye. How many of them knew, issued warnings to patients and still took orders from Fear? “Visiting a friend.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next time we'll get more into what happened in Tinsley's head that he went from a big believer in law and order all the way to "I'm going to break this serial killer out of jail" without passing Go or collecting $200. And Ricky will get to be more like his whirlwind of a silver-tongued self soon. 
> 
> Let me know if you liked it! Fuel this emotionally starving artist for those next two chapters, good ghouligans.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's... a long one, fellows... 
> 
> All legalities and locales in this fic remain very dubious and Vague Decade of Crime Noir-based. Apologies to the real town of Jasper, although none to Pennhurst as it was a terrible place. (And not really in driving distance of L.A. and Jasper.) 
> 
> I updated the “period typical” tags to be on the safe side. The homophobia and racism are mostly Vague Crime Noir Decade implications. 
> 
> In my mind, the Worth It boys knew about Ricky from the society pages; they probably considered burglarizing him at one point. And he knows them because he stopped by their trials sometimes to check on his BF’s career progress. 
> 
> **This chapter has the most explicit anything non-con related gets!** Check the end of chapter notes for specific warnings if you’re concerned about reading something you don’t want to get into.
> 
> ~comments are the reason I get up in the morning and, fittingly or ironically, the reason I stay up until 1 a.m. writing fic~

C.C. took his butler out to dinner, which was already something of a strange circumstance on the face of it. C.C. intended to make it stranger.

Bennett wasn't his butler, really. He was, almost a year into the man's absence, still Ricky Goldsworth's butler. But C.C. did currently hold the title to the Goldsworth estate, so if they were to get technical about who was currently paying Bennett's salary, sure, he was C.C.'s butler.

Bennett also just wasn't a butler, full stop. He appeared to use the term because Ricky had, and C.C. suspected Ricky used it as a joke. Bennett was the only full-time staff in the house; he functioned like a cook who sometimes cleaned or fixed things, and sometimes informed C.C. that they needed to hire someone else to clean or fix more elaborate things.

C.C. had told him he didn't have to keep working there, after it came out that his boss was a serial killer who had trusted his estate to a private detective with no idea how to take care of it. Bennett had stared at him and finally said, “No, I'll stay,” in a judgmental tone, and that was that.

No matter how C.C. diced it, though, the pieces added up to _hired help,_ which made him uncomfortable. Also, Bennett wasn't a great cook. So, sometimes, they went out for dinner. At least the choice of venue was easy. There was only one restaurant in Jasper.

C.C. waited until Bennett started eating, which he felt committed the man to sitting through whatever conversation was foisted on him. Then he said, “Do you ever think—does it ever seem to you like, when you win a fight with Goldsworth, it just means you're about to lose a much bigger one?”

“No,” Bennett said. “I've never won a fight with him. Not even about where to keep the best silver.”

C.C. twirled his fork until it lost purchase in his spaghetti and slid in a tractionless circle. “Well, trust me on this one. Recognize the warning signs, just in case. It's not always his fault, is what drives me nuts. The situation just—things that aren't even in his control, or that he wouldn't do--”

 _Wouldn't he?_ C.C. didn't see how Ricky could have gotten his sentence commuted, but Ricky had good lawyers. He didn't think Ricky would volunteer to play damsel in distress, but Ricky had surprised him before. To put it mildly.

It felt hopelessly familiar, like a recurring nightmare of walking into quicksand. Eyes fixed straight ahead, ground clutching higher with each step, and he just kept marching deeper.

“I keep thinking about this... about one thing Ricky said. When we went to the police. He said 'while I'm in prison,' which... sounds temporary. Right? But he had to know it would be a life sentence.”

“He knew you'd break him out.” Bennett didn't let this distract him from his chicken.

“Jesus, man…” C.C. scrubbed a hand through his hair so it stood on end. Ricky would have fixed it for him.

“Oh, aren't we here so you can tell me you're going to break him out?”

C.C. made a series of increasingly frustrated gestures but was forced to end on a nod.

Bennett shrugged. “Do you care whether he set it up or not? Whatever you saw, it was so bad you're going to break him out. Do you really give a shit how he got there?”

C.C. rubbed his knuckles hard over his sternum. His chest was still tight with it, seeing Ricky that way; his skin fit wrong, his bones ached. Like a fever, like his whole body would shut down if he didn't get Ricky away from Fear. “Guess not,” he said. “He was right about a hell of a lot. He said I intellectualize morality too much.”

Bennett tried his wine, made a face, and swiped C.C.'s beer.

“I just…” C.C. took Bennett's wine and let the glass chill his palm. “I see a lot of... of really bad shit, with this job. People are ugly, and petty, and cruel. It doesn't give me a great view of human nature, this... metaphorical scenic overlook. But we can—that's why we have a system, right. We want to be better. We can make ourselves be better. So we have to write it all down and follow bulleted lists, we can still _do_ it. We're not great at it, but we're fucking trying. That matters. That's maybe all that matters, that we try to... at least write it down and follow our lists and act like we care about other people. Even the ones we don't. I thought, you know, sure, people fall through the cracks, but we're trying. That's what the system is. Us trying."

Bennett inspected the beer. “I know you and Ricky like to sit up all night arguing philosophy, but Tinsley? You're not paying me enough for this.”

“I'll give you an early Christmas bonus.” The wine was awful. C.C. knocked it all back in one gulp and it scraped his insides. “I should report this doctor, if I believe all that. I should wait for the legal process to deal with him. But it'd take too long, it wouldn't be... enough... It wouldn’t help Ricky. So now I have to think about all the other people the system didn’t really help. Ricky was right. The second it hit me at home I caved.”

Bennett blinked, owlish behind his glasses. “Maybe you need to think Ricky masterminded some insanely elaborate scheme in order to feel less guilty about putting him in there.”

“ _Jesus,_ ” C.C. repeated. “You know, you're... you're one hell of a butler.”

“I was mayor for a couple terms.” C.C. laughed. Bennett didn't. “It's a very small town,” he said. “We can't support career politicians. Even the mayor needs a day job.”

Jasper was a very small town. C.C. could feel every pair of eyes on him, each time he walked down a street or entered a store. He might only see one or two people, but a dozen more were behind curtains or just around corners. All of them told their neighbors, who told their neighbors...

There were no secrets in Jasper. C.C. hated it. It felt like being inside some living thing, like the town itself was a vast animal and all the people its moving parts.

There were no secrets in Jasper, and the Cutthroat Killer had lived here for fifteen years.

“I know it's the first place the police will look,” he said. “But—”

Bennett was already nodding. “You're bringing him home.”

* * *

 

C.C. had moved into Ricky’s house in Jasper a few weeks after Ricky drove them down the coast and turned himself in to the LAPD. C.C.’s worldly possessions, the ones he cared enough to take with him, hadn't filled the back of Ricky's car. Currently, C.C.’s car.

C.C. missed L.A. and Chicago. The space, the anonymity. He hated the pine woods pressing in around this town, creeping up between the houses, a slow flood that crested at night in a wave of dark and quiet. He hated the house, enormous and echoing. He hated the kitchen most of all, and he sat there every morning he could and he watched the sun rise through the wide bank of windows.

They had lived in L.A. At least, C.C. lived there. Ricky had stayed there more often than anywhere else. By the end of their first year of dancing around each other, C.C. knew—it wasn't a hunch anymore, it wasn't circumstantial evidence or a trick of his eyes, it wasn't a series of coincidences—C.C. _knew_ Goldsworth was the Cutthroat Killer. But he couldn't prove it, and Goldsworth knew he couldn't prove it. So they just... kept at it. Kept dancing. Goldsworth had started inviting C.C. to his house in Jasper around then. C.C. never took him up on it, because it sounded a lot like an invitation to never come back.

It turned into a game, the way every time Ricky went up the coast he offered to bring C.C. with him, and C.C. said that it sounded like a gas but he was a working stiff, and Ricky laughed and said to let him know if he caught any famous criminals. Up until C.C. accepted.

He remembered Ricky's face. It was usually a telephone offer by that point; Ricky was too sure he'd say no to bother dropping by in person. But that time he'd been there, in C.C.'s office. C.C. said yes and Ricky looked at him—

It was an open, startled look. Touched, a little frightened. Ricky was touched by weird things, and frightened by weird things. C.C. thought that look might mean Ricky had made a deal with himself only to kill C.C. if he went up to the house.

He didn't tell anyone where he was going. He didn't stop by his room to pick anything up. He had everything he needed to show Ricky in his briefcase, right there in the office.

Ricky touched his hand on their way into the house. (C.C. remembered that every time he walked up the driveway. He remembered it so hard the back of his hand ached and he could smell Ricky's cologne.)

On the nights he was perfectly honest with himself, he could admit he'd hoped that, regardless of whether or not he was going to die up here, he might at least get fucked first. He hadn't. Ricky kissed him senseless on the couch the first night, probably the most full-body contact C.C. ever got from him. (C.C. remembered that every time he went in the living room. Ricky's weight firm on top of him, a sturdy thigh and then quick fingers between his legs. The swell of Ricky's bicep, braced beside his head. He'd hung onto it in an attempt to keep from grabbing Ricky anywhere else, and made fun of Ricky for being vain about his arms. What he remembered most was the way Ricky laughed, breathless, with his face red and eyes shining, and made fun of him for getting so hot for good arms.) But Ricky kept every one of his own buttons done up, and they slept in different rooms.

Except. When Ricky showed him his room, he jerked a thumb over his shoulder and said, “And that one's mine,” and he leaned against the wall and looked at the ceiling and said, “OK?”

“ _Ricky_.” C.C. bent down into kissing range and waited for Ricky to peck him on the lips. “OK. It's always OK.”

Ricky nodded, half to himself, and wandered off looking so... punch-drunk happy, all over his beautiful face.

C.C. didn't want to sound like a chivalric knight, off to die for a chance to kiss the nethermost hem of his lady's garment, or any such romantic tomfoolery, but that was—that was pretty good, that moment.

(And now he remembered it every time he went upstairs.)

But the kitchen was the worst. C.C. had made it two days. Two days of simple, stupefying happiness closing over his head every moment Ricky had him distracted, and cold horror dragging him back out every time Ricky left him alone. The kitchen in the morning was the most—

Two mornings, he got up at five a.m. and went downstairs to make his own coffee, because he wasn't a sadist and wasn't going to wake poor Mr. Bennett to do it. Both mornings, Ricky followed him down a half an hour later. His hair was rumpled and he was barefoot. He had on pajamas instead of a suit three layers deep. C.C. didn't risk touching him or even asking to. Ricky put his head down on his arms on the table and dozed until C.C. woke him up with breakfast, and C.C. contented himself with glimpses of collarbone and ankle like it was 1892.

The thing was, he _was_ content with them. He knew how heavy those small things were in Ricky's hands, so they felt the same in his.

The second morning, Ricky took his hand across the breakfast table and read the paper without looking at him. C.C. watched the sun rise and light Ricky up, turn his black hair red and warm his eyes, turn his skin from brown to gold.

Two days. Not three.

The third morning, Ricky was waiting when C.C. came downstairs. It was dark out, and the overhead light was harsh. Ricky was wide awake, collected, bright-eyed. He looked like something come to banish the man who'd yawned and winced his way to the table the last two mornings, unwary, not even checking where C.C. was in the room. “Detective Tinsley,” he said, “I think you have something to tell me and you'd better do it now.”

“Maybe I'd better show you,” C.C. said, and he got the file in his briefcase. He handed it to Ricky and made coffee while the Cutthroat Killer read the case C.C. had built against him.

When C.C. handed him a cup, he sighed into it, splattering a picture of a victim. “Oops,” he said. Mr. Walsh, 39, deceased, leaving a wife and two daughters, looked like a burn victim now, coffee curling and darkening his face. He wasn't, hadn't been. That wasn't what the Cutthroat Killer did. “Well,” said Ricky, who already wasn't looking at the picture anymore, disinterested, “it's not ironclad, Detective Tinsley.”

“No,” C.C. allowed. He stood there, looking across the table at the crown of Ricky's head, at the neat part in his thick hair. “But the police can't put together a connection. They don't know how the killer chooses his victims. I think the interviews I've collected do that.” He moved the picture of Mr. Walsh out of the way. Coffee ran onto the table as he turned the pages of the file. “And that… connection… links them to these deaths in Jasper. Eight men died or went missing here, after you moved in but before the Cutthroat killings started. And the same connection—” At the end of the file was a newspaper clipping, a twenty-year-old quarter-page story about a man who shot his wife and three of his children before turning the gun on himself. “Links them to you.” He flipped rapidly away, back to the deaths in Jasper. “Once the police have this, they'll have to look at you.”

“If the connection between the victims is that they were all pieces of shit who deserved to die because they were destroying the lives of every single person who loved them and depended on them, then sure. You finally solved the case.”

“OK.” C.C.'s throat burned, his eyes. He ran a hand through his hair, hard. Mr. Walsh stared at him, eyes open, face wrinkling. His wife had held their wedding photo when she talked to C.C., clutched to her chest like an infant. “Ricky…” The violence he knew Ricky to be capable of loomed behind the man constantly, an outsized shadow echoing his movements, lending menace to small gestures. But the fact remained that he’d mostly seen only the aftermath. And the one time he’d seen Ricky hurt anyone, it had been a more than fair fight. He mostly couldn't picture what he was about to say. “You put them to bed for their families to find…”

“Without their tongue or hands, yeah, I was there.” Ricky kept flipping through the file. He took a pen out of his pocket and marked something down on a timetable that put him in San Francisco on the night of a Cutthroat murder there. “You know why the police haven't figured out the connection? Most of these people didn't have records. The women are scared, the men are embarrassed. The kids are—How many of these guys were cops?”

“Twelve.” His tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth on the T. He set his palms on the table and leaned into them to keep his hands still.

“Thanks, yeah. Twelve. And even after they're dead, nobody will talk to the police about it. _You_ show up, with those dopey eyes, all off the books, grateful for a cup of tea, real good crying shoulder—sure, maybe they talk to you.” He smiled at C.C.. It was warm, real. “Hell, worked on me, baby.”

“Ricky—”

“But not the cops. They don't go to the cops. Not when these sons of bitches were alive, not after they're dead. Because the system doesn't fucking work, C.C.”

“I'm not saying it's perfect. Look at me, c'mon, I'm not trying to tell you the L.A.P.D. are a stellar example of everything we as a society can accomplish. But this isn't about—this about you, Rick.” He blotted the photograph with his sleeve. “The best way to help Mrs. Walsh was to slit her husband’s throat, cut some pieces off him, and put him back to bed? You think her life improved, for that experience?”

Ricky, who C.C. knew to be a very smart man, looked confused, like he wasn’t sure what the relation between the concepts was.

“Jesus, fine. Can you even tell me you were _sure_ about every single one of the people you killed? In Jasper, yeah, it’s a village. Everyone knows everyone’s business. But when you started in cities? You never went out on the town feeling like it was time to make some heads roll, didn't like the way some guy snapped at his wife in the French restaurant, so you followed them home—?”

“Don't be fucking ridiculous. You know I hate French food.”

“In nine cases, a kid found—the body. Their dad. Like that.”

“I'm not sure what you're looking for here, Ceece. You know what I am.”

“Do you, though? Do you really—honestly think you’re helping anyone, doing this this? Or that they deserved to die that way? I don’t care what they did, no one—”

Ricky was looking at him scornfully. It was an expression he was good at, a cutting twist to his lips. He didn’t often aim it at C.C. “You’d care what they did,” he said. “You just can’t imagine it.”

C.C. sat down. His joints felt odd, shaky and loose. “Could you stop?”

Ricky frowned, head bobbing. Confused, then affronted.

“I'm not—I don't mean—I'm not requesting that you to stop, for me. I'm honestly asking. The way I should have asked Uncle Ernie whether or not he could stop drinking, before he drowned in a puddle on the way home from the bar.”

“Mm. Sorry about your uncle.”

“I made that up, it was a joke.”

“Oh, you prick.” Ricky laughed.

It still settled into C.C.'s chest, a deep satisfaction and a thrill, making Ricky laugh. “Here's the thing, baby—”

“Don't call me that.”

It was a long-standing issue, but C.C. was truly not going to stand for it this time. “You just used it on me!”

“Fine. One-time pass.” He was still grinning.

“Thank you. So, ah. I know... It's a rush, doing this. Planning it, getting away with it. If I—sure, as just an intellectual exercise, if I divorce it from the... human element. I get that. Herculean stuff, very impressive. The thing is, I think it would be harder for you to... stop. To not do it. I think you're, um. Not well. I think you need help, Rick.”

“Jesus Christ, Tinsley. You're unbelievable.”

“That's me.” He spread his hands weakly. “Ol' Unbelievable Tinsley. My circus name. People used to try to... to reach up and put an apple on my head. Too high up, you see.”

“Yeah, I got it.”

“OK. So.” He drummed his fingers on a corner of the file. “I'm taking this to the police. Or you're stopping me. I can't... I'm sorry, Rick. I really can't do this. Let you do this. One way or the other.”

Ricky looked at him, for a long moment. His head was tilted, birdlike, and his eyes looked black under the white glare overhead. C.C. had thought, had imagined, he'd be more afraid right now. More like the first times he'd been alone with Ricky, when it would still have been laughably easy for him to disappear. He loved the dip at the tip of Ricky's nose, the curve of his lips, the shadows under his cheekbones. He wasn't all that worried about dying.

Ricky leaned on an elbow. “You got a piece or something?”

“No. C’mon, you left with me, you know I don't have a gun.”

“You're pretty calm.”

“Oh. Well, yeah.”

“You—do you think you could stop me _without_ a gun?” It was incredulous enough that C.C. was mildly offended, although... fair.

“I was there out back of the Frolic Room, baby. No, I don't think I can stop you.”

“Don't—”

“Last one! Last 'baby,' baby. No, I don't... there isn't a secret backup plan. I just wanted to tell you first. It's up—it's really up to you.”

Ricky picked up the photo of Mr. Walsh and tucked it back into the file. He closed it up, wound the string back around the closure. “You're not giving this to anyone.”

C.C. nodded. He wasn't conscious of being afraid, but his hands were shaking. He clasped them together in his lap. This was stupid, he thought, really fucking dumb shit. He could scoff at knights errant, pining for someone who didn't love them back, but at least they didn't sit with their eyes closed and wait for their lady fair to slit their throats. They went out a slayed some damn dragons.

He did close his eyes, though.

He didn't hear Ricky move, but he was behind him. He put a hand on C.C.'s shoulder. “You're going to burn this,” he said.

“I mean... there are copies of all of it. Aside from my interviews, it's just copies of public documents.”

“It's a gesture. I'd like you to burn it.”

C.C. had. There was an old wood-burning stove in the kitchen. The file was too thick and tight-packed to take quickly; it almost put out the first fire. The sun came up while they waited. It turned Ricky's hair red and his eyes warm and his skin gold. In the sunlight, he looked tired, bruised under the eyes. He leaned his head against C.C.'s shoulder. “Long drive back,” he said.

C.C.'s stomach felt cold. He wouldn't make it. He'd rather go while he was still sort of calm about it. “You can't do it here? Nobody even knows where I am, man.”

Ricky sighed. He kissed C.C.'s cheek. C.C. was in his stocking feet, and Ricky had his shoes on; it was a more feasible operation that it would have been otherwise. “I'm not turning myself in to the police in Jasper, you mook. They wouldn't even know which papers to file.” He put a hand on C.C.'s cheek, thumb digging into the softest part of his chin, and turned his face, looked him in the eye. “I'm not sick. I chose everything I did. I knew what I was doing. I knew the consequences. I know what I'm doing now.” He steered C.C. back a step with the grip on his face. “Go get dressed. We have to stop by my lawyer's office on the way in.”

C.C. didn't remember the rest of that morning very well. He did recall the cold spreading, numbing his limbs. He gathered he'd signed some things at the office, papers Ricky had already had set to go. He did remember, very clearly, a slice of light and noise that blinded him to the rest of the afternoon, sitting in the car with Ricky outside the police station.

“Don't visit me while I'm in prison,” Ricky said. He was grimacing. “You have to promise. I don't want you to see that.”

“I can't.”

“You can come to the trial.” He sounded satisfied with himself, with this compromise; he sounded like this was a normal negotiation to be engaged in. “But that's it. You're all taken care of. I didn't—I'm sorry about that time I said you didn't have any meaning in your life or career outside of me. Or whatever it was. Anyway, you'll be OK.”

None of that made any sense to C.C. at the time. He still hadn't been clear on what he signed. “You never said that.”

“I did, actually.” Ricky smiled, all his teeth gleaming. “You were pretty lit, though. I mean, so was I, but you were... you were really gone, man.”

“Well, we fight a lot. I bet I didn't take it personal.”

“You looked like I shot your puppy, but sure.” He put the keys to the car in C.C.'s hand. “You're not visiting me in there.”

C.C. nodded. He didn't mean it.

“You can try and see how far it gets you.”

He was pretty sure Ricky got out of the car then. C.C. sat there for a long time, and no one bothered him, which was bizarre but one of the benefits of sitting in a Jaguar. At some point, he got out and walked to his apartment. At some point after that, Ricky's lawyer started calling him to remind him that he had a lot of money and a house and a car.

At some point after that, C.C. started sitting in the kitchen in Jasper alone and watching the sun come up.

* * *

 

C.C. pitched his idea and Ilnyckyj nodded along up until the end, at which point he said, “Start over.”

C.C. checked his watch. “I don't think I have time to do that before someone pokes their head in and asks me for some credentials. Maybe, I don't know, a law degree.”

“Oh, they won't. Nobody cares.” He rolled a finger, _come on_ , and his cuffs clinked against the table between them. “One of us has lost his mind, and I want you to listen to yourself when you talk this time. My theory is it's you.”

“Mr. Ilnyckyj, I promise. No japes, jests, or jokes, and that’s a Tinsley guarantee. I want you to tell me how to steal a man from the dungeon of a heavily-guarded asylum.”

Ilnyckyj looked at Bianchi. C.C. had a feeling Bianchi was the one he needed to convince, here, but Bianchi was difficult to talk to, given he didn't really respond. Ilnyckyj sighed. “I would love for you to have had this moral breakdown before you turned us in.”

“Well, I'm sorry my personal worldview collapsing into rubble atop my very soul took place at an inconvenient time for you, but I don't know what else to say about that. I think I'm offering a pretty fair trade. All you have to do is plan a heist, which you could do in your sleep, and boom. I get Lim out of there for you.”

“What you're going to do is get caught, and Steven'll be booted right back here. I bet somewhere he gets to go outside whenever he wants is a better deal.”

“It's not—it's not. For him.” C.C. took his glasses off, the better to scrub at his face with both hands. “The man... the doctor I have to get Goldsworth away from, somebody already warned Lim about him. That sounds to me like he has a type.”

“Steven should be fine, then. He's nothing like Goldsworth.”

“You know what I'm talking about, don't be a dummy.”

Bianchi waited for C.C. to put his glasses back on, and spoke quietly enough C.C. had to lean in to hear him. “Why is Goldsworth in Pennhurst?”

C.C.'s jaw didn't drop, but it was close. He'd forgotten these two missed the trial of the century. Outside, Goldsworth's name had spent three months splashed across the front page of every major newspaper and was synonymous with a string of the grisliest murders on the West Coast. In here, the last newspaper Ilnyckyj and Bianchi had seen would have mentioned Goldsworth in the society pages. “He's... he's the Cutthroat Killer.”

Ilnyckyj, who had a remarkably inexpressive face, blinked slowly. Bianchi didn't even do that.

“Goldsworth is the Cutthroat Killer,” Ilnyckyj repeated, “so you want us to help you break him out... with Steven. In proximity to Steven. So that he, the Cutthroat Killer, is free and sitting next to Steven in the getaway car.”

“Gimme a break, man, he wouldn't hurt Mr. Lim!” C.C. was more offended by the suggestion than he had any right to be.

“Why?” Bianchi said.

“Because—he has no reason to, I don't—Lim's a great guy, larceny aside—”

“No, he means why break Goldsworth out,” Ilnyckyj translated. “Sounds like the problem is the mad scientist. Make that go away instead of unleashing a serial killer on the general public.”

“I…” _He'd do it for me_ would sound stupidly naive. It was true, though. Ricky had made a half-decade hobby of tormenting C.C., but he'd always put things right when he went too far. C.C. took his glasses off again, folded the arms back and forth. He stared at the lenses. Ricky would have been able to convince them. Ricky could, pretty reliably, convince anyone of anything. He said, “Ricky, um... His hair looks right, still. He's been in there for months, and his hair is cut the same as he always kept it. He's clean-shaven. He's got access to, I don't know, a toilet. It's—when I walked in there, he was supposed to look neglected. But it was a week without a real shower, is all. I'm sure he hates it, but it was... theatrics. In five minutes he'd be…” He shrugged, flipped his glasses over. “He's very... he's a handsome man. I think Dr. Fear would agree with me. And I think that matters to him.” He cut himself off there. His instinct was to tell the whole truth— _I don’t think he’d act on it; he wouldn’t be able to tell himself it was for Ricky’s own good_ —and to reassure them, _We won’t let anything happen to Lim._ That wasn’t what Ricky would do. He would give them just as much as they needed to convince themselves.

He thought about what he was saying, and about Steven Lim, and felt sick. That was probably good. Made his face convincing. “I owe Ricky, and I owe Lim.” He shook himself. “And I'm not going to _unleash him on the general public._ I have a better plan than that.”

Ilnyckyj shared a look with Bianchi. C.C. really hoped this play worked, because if witnessing that in the basement had been unforgivable, telling other people about it? Ricky wasn't just going to kill him; he was going to distribute his body over a tri-state area. C.C. would hate for the police to spend months hunting for his severed hands all for nothing.

Bianchi nodded. “We need blueprints,” Ilnyckyj said. “And everything about the security measures you can get us.”

For the first time since the day before, C.C. took a breath that didn't feel like there was a fist around each of his lungs. “You got 'em.”

“And you'll have to get Steven up to speed. This is going to be a hell of a lot easier with an inside man. And by 'easier' I mean 'not completely impossible,' because I don't trust you with a heist, Tinsley.”

“Hey, I got in here, didn't I?” C.C. winked broadly at them. “C.C. Tinsley, Esquire. Couple bucks for some business cards and a nice coat. The smarmy attitude was free.”

“How'd you afford that, by the way?” Ilnyckyj pointed at his coat. “You had to walk to our trial every day because you wouldn't spring for bus fare, you cheap bastard.”

“Oh.” C.C. smiled, and it went crooked on his face. He tipped his hat as a distraction. “Well, gentlemen, it's a long story, but I'll give you the marquee headline version: I inherited the Goldsworth fortune.”

 

* * *

 

The second visit was—worse. Better. At least he had something real to offer Ricky now, an actual plan. But the plan wasn't fast enough. And at least Ricky was more himself. But that meant Ricky was fully present for... all of it.

Fear was doing everything but rub his hands together and let loose wicked cackles, as he led C.C. to the basement. Or, to be technically accurate, he was displaying happiness in all the normal ways. It was just that C.C. didn't care for what he was happy about.

“You were upset by the conditions in which we were—sadly—forced to keep Mr. Goldsworth, yes, Detective Tinsley? I'm sure it jarred you terribly, accustomed as you were to the image he created for himself outside these walls. I do stand by that decision, you understand. It's _most_ important, most important, to tear those illusions away—from Richard himself, therapeutically, but from you as well, if we're to continue these sessions. He's ever so much more dangerous if you don't see him for what he is. All the same, it did paint too shocking a picture, and I feel we've progressed enough to allow some cosmetic creature comforts.”

“It did look grim, doc. I'm glad to hear you've brightened the joint up. Make a cozier scene for my readers, too.” He brandished the notebook he'd brought as a prop. He'd taken it off Ricky's desk in Jasper and filled a random assortment of pages with old notes from the Cutthroat case, in case Fear caught a glimpse inside.

“Certainly, certainly. Your novel.”

“Non-fiction novel. Literary crime.” C.C. had, by virtue of his career, journalist friends. He mentally thanked them for their contribution to his character. Quibbling with gusto over the exact genre of a still-theoretical magnum opus was a thriving hobby in the field of future Pulitzer winners.

It had the same effect on Fear it had on everyone: instantaneous boredom. “Forgive me. I'm afraid, as a scientist, I haven't kept up with the trends of the art world.”

“Maybe you should dip a toe back in, when you get the time. Keeps the perspective fresh. Scientists need a little imagination too, right?” They'd reached the door to Ricky's cell and he couldn't stop talking. He didn't want to see.

Fear stared at him, a tilt to his chin and his lips. He didn't look anything like Ricky; he was an old white guy and not, in C.C.'s considered opinion, dazzlingly handsome. But C.C. saw Ricky in that expression, in the set of his head and his mouth. “I've never been accused of a lack of imagination,” he said, and opened the door.

Ricky looked worse, and the cell looked nominally better. It was dressed up with a couple obscene splashes of domesticity. A bed, white plastic panels molded to imitate wood. A pale blue blanket folded on the bare blue-piped mattress. A round woven-rag rug, laughably small for the space. A desk, the same white plastic as the bed. It looked like doll furniture for a pink plastic house, and it like it had been chosen specifically to make the bare stone bleaker in contrast.

Ricky had a few days’ stubble on his face and a bruise purpling his cheekbone. He was sitting in a chair, at least, not dangling from the ceiling. On the downside, the chair was a huge rusted thing with cuffs that clamped his ankles and wrists in place. C.C. wasn't sure he was conscious, from the way he was slumped staring at the light, but then he turned to face them, moving his head with effort. He looked at each of them in turn and his face twisted before his gaze settled on some blank place between the two of them. His left hand twitched, pulling against the cuff. He still had those stupid gauntlets laced up his arms.

“We had a difficult day yesterday, didn't we, Richard?” Fear clapped his hands softly. His tone was jovial, indulgent. He sounded like he was talking to a child. “I'm afraid, detective, that you don’t find Richard at his best. We have decreased his dosage and he has reacted poorly. One of our friends here at Pennhurst tried to help him with his morning shave and Richard did him an injury.”

“It's not like he was a typist,” Ricky said. His voice was hoarse. “He didn't need the whole finger.”

C.C. laughed, which he knew was counterproductive and wildly inappropriate. Ricky smiled at him, dazed and off-center, and he was glad he had.

Fear smiled too, politely. “I'm sure he will continue to perform his duties admirably.” The expression drained off Ricky's face abruptly, leaving something shocked in its place, as if the space of the joke had been all it took for him to forget Fear was there. Fear walked around the chair to stand at Ricky's back. “Detective, in view of this incident, I have been reconsidering your request to speak with Richard alone. I think it might be very good for him to engage with his fellow man, on terms... on terms you are perhaps uniquely suited to fulfill.” He bent and reached forward, along the arm of the chair, and undid the clasp holding Ricky's left wrist.

C.C. stuffed his fists into the pockets of his coat, bracing his elbows. He wanted to hit Fear so badly it felt like something outside himself, shoving him forward. “Well, that'd be great, doc. I'll do my best. What's the prescription?” He kept his focus on Ricky; if he wanted to hit Fear, he figured Ricky was a half second from straight up murder.

“Richard has spent a great deal of time inventing and perpetuating illusions—lies. About his identity, his capabilities, his privileges. He has taken things without rendering compensation. Theft is a wicked crime, don't you think, detective?”

“I've always said that myself.” C.C. had absolutely no idea what Fear was talking about, and wasn't really listening. Fear undid the clasp at Ricky's right wrist, and C.C. jerked forward, positive Ricky would do something dumb. But Ricky didn't move. His eyes were glazed, like he'd passed out with them open.

“Oh, not to worry, detective. I wouldn't put your life at risk. Richard is more himself, but he is in no condition to harm you, so long as you are... reasonably cautious.” He hooked a finger through the tie running up the gauntlet on Ricky's right arm, lifted it an inch, and then let the arm drop. It hit the chair again, boneless. Ricky took a ragged breath; that shouldn't have hurt, but Ricky's face spasmed and his eyes cleared. It had dragged him back for some reason. “We do need to be cautious with muscle relaxants, however, so I have restricted myself to his limbs. Do be careful. It was his teeth he used on our poor friend's finger.” He kept his hand on Ricky's arm, fingers light on the leather. “Richard and I have had some very productive chats together, haven't we, my dear? About all sorts of things, among them, detective—you.”

Ricky winced. He locked his eyes on C.C.'s.

“Oh, yeah?” C.C. awarded himself a prize for sounding noncommittal about a relationship that could get him locked up for, quote, sex perversion, unquote.

“I worry that, with the very best of intentions, you have enabled Richard's... less admirable habits.”

C.C. opted not to contribute, at this point. _Hey, bud, he's the one who shoved me against a wall and stuck his hand down my pants, not the other way around,_ would sound unprofessional.

“You stood by him even after he began to toy with your life in increasingly destructive ways.”

 _Oh, that kind of enabling._ “Well, I was working on a book,” he tried.

“I'm quite sure most authors research their novels without being arrested on false charges.”

“I bailed him right back out,” Ricky muttered, apparently unable to contain this observation.

“You did.” C.C. kept this laugh turned down to the level of a chuckle. The charges hadn't been all that false, either—he hadn't broken into Ricky's office, but he had been there without permission, and snooping. Although it had been chilling at the time. There was something profoundly uncomfortable about a man very calmly, while looking deep into your eyes, splintering the lock on his own office door and then calling the police to accuse you of it. C.C. didn't add any of that out loud, because Ricky was glaring at him.

Fear shook his head, expression tragic. “You see how he still has this hold over you. And all... for... what. False promises, detective. A kind of theft.”

C.C. kept still and kept his face blank. Fear could read what he wanted into that.

“You understand, detective, your particular rights with regard to Richard?”

C.C was more confused by the second, which didn't do his professional pride any favors. Most of his attention was on Fear's hand, which was moving by degrees. He skimmed slowly up Ricky's chest and throat without touching him, and then he did. His cupped his palm under Ricky's jaw. He settled his fingers along Ricky's chin and mouth. A broad thumb with a gnarled nail tugged at Ricky's lip.

“You understand what you stand to reclaim, if you have the courage to strip from him the illusion of his control over you?” Fear continued.

C.C. nodded again. He felt he was moving like he was in an old movie, a series of individual still moments scattered a little too far apart. He didn't have to fight to keep still anymore; he wasn't sure he'd be able to move even when Fear left. Lead pooled inside him. He would have moved to stop Ricky, and Ricky wasn't doing anything. He let Fear touch him. And he was _there_ this time, he knew what was happening; his eyes stayed on C.C.'s, burning, and trapped them both there, a livewire strung between them.

C.C. went to Arizona once, for a case. He'd passed through a small town with a rattlesnake attraction. They had a live rattlesnake, big as he pictured a python, longer and thicker than his leg. They had sewn its mouth shut alive. Men could hold it and have their picture taken, and the picture was impressive. A live rattlesnake coiling over their shoulders, dwarfing their arms. They looked brave, in the pictures. C.C. had left that town quickly and never quite got over the disgust, like dust coating the roof of his mouth and turning to mud. The proud men in those pictures, and the snake starved to death, harmless.

“Then we are on the same page of the book,” Fear said. He dropped Ricky's chin. “You need only knock to be let out,” he said, and left, just like that, smiling indulgently at C.C. like he was leaving a reasonably responsible teenage son with the keys to the car.

The door shut behind him and C.C. took a breath that burned. He stumbled forward, dropped to his knees and started dragging at the cuffs around Ricky's ankles. He didn't want to look Ricky in the face again. The size of the fury and terror he'd seen there, the fact that neither of them had done anything; he didn't want to deal with it.

“Come here. C.C., Ceece, come…” Ricky leaned forward, lost his balance and slumped back.

The relief of hearing that dumb nickname gutted him. He tipped forward himself, face almost in Ricky's lap, before he grasped the request and levered himself up close, face beside Ricky's.

Ricky rested his forehead against C.C.'s temple, neither of their expressions visible from the doorway. “Are we—is anyone else in here?”

“No, he left. But I think he's probably keeping track—”

“No shit, dumbass, yeah he can see us.” His breath was hot on C.C.'s cheek. “I can't... you might have to stop me, shut me up, if someone comes in, I can't—keep track of things, which things are real, my head's—messed up a little.”

“Got it. Anything. You can always check.”

“Can we go home?”

C.C. swallowed. His throat hurt. “Not—so close, Rick, I swear. Couple days. Not right now, though. I just wanted to make sure you were hanging in here.”

“‘Couple days' isn't the kind of specificity and confidence a man wants to hear from the fella planning his breakout, Tinsley.”

C.C. laughed, jolting forward to hide it in Ricky's shoulder. He smelled clean but unpleasant, like he'd scrubbed with the kind of lye soap C.C. associated with pilgrims in covered wagons. “OK, two days. We've got an inside man, I've been chatting up some guards. There's a midnight shift change. It's gonna be real hijinks, baby.”

“At night? Who's the inside—You have to do something, or he'll come back in, are you doing anything? Come on, stand me up.” He leaned into C.C., breath coming short with exertion, and his left arm dropped into his lap.

C.C. wasn't clear on the causal relationship between Fear watching them and his taking Ricky out of his restraints, but Ricky seemed sure of himself, so he did. He slung Ricky's right arm over his shoulder, got him by the waist, and hauled him up. It was technically much the same position as they'd been in the first time C.C. was here, his arms full of Ricky in a way he would have walked the world over to have anyplace but this. And this time Ricky had signed up for it, faculties more or less intact, which was a double-edged sword. C.C. didn't have to shoulder the guilt for this one alone, at least. But Ricky so clearly hated it, there was plenty more guilt to go around. He swayed, knees unsteady, and every time C.C. held tighter to keep him upright his whole chest caved in an attempt to flinch away.

“OK, who's the inside man?”

“Uh, brace yourself. Steven Lim?”

Ricky stopped flinching, so the news had that going for it. "Mother of God. Your... your little jewel thief? I'm gonna die in here."

“He's a really good jewel thief. And watch who you call little. He's technically twice your size.”

“Jesus Christ. This better work. I can't believe I'm going to owe Steven Lim.” Ricky shrugged with the effort, but managed to lift his left hand high enough to wedge the thumb in C.C.'s belt. “C'mon. You're not doing anything.”

“What? No, I'm not doing anything, what am I supposed to do?”

“Are you kidding me? Are you fucking—” His head dropped back and he righted it unsteadily, frowning. “Did you not catch what he wants you to do to me?”

C.C.'s stomach turned. “No?”

“If you make me say this just because you're squeamish, I'm going to pin your eyes shut. With nails.”

C.C., who was used to graphic and specific threats, was less bothered by the danger to his eyelids and more by Ricky hesitating. “Sorry, pal. He was talking gibberish about you stealing things, was all I got.”

“God in Heaven. He thinks… He had me on this shit, I couldn’t shut up so I tried to at least make you sound... I wanted him to let you back in, Ceece.” One of his knees gave entirely, and he slumped into C.C. His forehead hit C.C.'s collarbone. “He thinks I've been making you sleep on the couch, and now would be a good time to drag me upstairs to the master bedroom.”

C.C. wrapped his hand around the back of Ricky's head. His hair was clean, brushed, heavy as silk in his fingers. “Hang on,” he said. “Hang on.” He gave himself a moment to come to terms with the reality of the phrase 'paralyzed with rage.' He felt that if he moved he'd shatter. He also thought he might laugh, and that if he did he really would lose a finger at minimum, but this was fucking insane. He wanted it written down on a prescription. For your serial killer: apply a scene from _Gone with the Wind_ and call me in the morning, signed Dr. Fear.

“C.C. You have to give him something to keep him out of here.”

“Sure. Yeah, but Rick, I mean. I can't.”

“No fucking kidding you can't, I'm not saying you should actually bend me over the desk and violate section 286 of the penal code of the great state of California. He doesn’t care, he just thinks you do. All he wants is for me to be uncomfortable. So just fucking… make me uncomfortable.”

C.C. nodded. He didn't trust his voice.

“So, bed,” Ricky snapped.

That felt familiar. Their sexual encounters tended to involve Ricky ordering C.C. around. Then, generally, he'd get C.C. off and refuse to let C.C. return the favor.

C.C. secured his grip on Ricky's waist. It felt wrong; Ricky had always been so solid, so heavy with muscle. There was too little of him, and he was too easy to lift, to move backward toward the bed. C.C. started to turn so he could sit down.

“No, you get on top.”

C.C. hesitated. Ricky had lost muscle mass, but not enough that C.C. could support him at arm's length in comfort. “I don't think I can put you down first. I'll drop you.”

“So drop me, it's a bed. You're supposed to be flinging me down in a fit of repressed lust.”

“Jesus.” He did laugh then, that _Gone with the Wind_ picture jostled to the surface of his brain, and he felt half the tension drain out of Ricky. “OK, let's try—” He gave up any hope of getting them aligned correctly and just fell forward. They ended up diagonal on the bed, and to the door; it was an awful fit, but it was a good angle for making this look real. He planted his knees on either side of Ricky’s thighs, one hand braced by Ricky's head, keeping his weight well off; and his coat fell open, pretty well disguising the specifics.

Ricky instantly, visibly, tried to move and couldn't, and just as visibly started panicking. His breath hitched, gaze going hard and shiny as plastic.

C.C. made sure his arm was between Ricky's face and the door, and bent closer. “You can tell me to stop,” he said. “I'll run out screaming. Tell him you bit my tongue.”

Ricky shook, half of it with a laugh. “You can always tell him about how you can't get it up without a dozen roses, Barry White on the record player and a minimum of twelve lit candles.” His voice trembled.

“ _One time_ I tried to be a _little_ romantic... Was that a request in disguise? I could croon you a little Barry right now.”

“I will tear a button off your coat and use it to saw your tongue off.” That put him right. Nothing like coming up with threats to even Ricky out.

“Now what? If we skip the button thing for now. This is a new coat.”

“I noticed. I like your old one better.” His left fingers twitched. “Hands. Up. Hold my arms down. And get a grip on yourself, I'm going to act like you're hurting me.”

“You're the boss.” He collected Ricky's wrists in his right hand, the one closest to the door. He swallowed back a wave of sickness at how limp they were in his grasp, moved them above Ricky's head, and leaned into them. Ricky's spine arched and he started to scream before choking it off. He wasn't acting like he'd been hurt, C.C. had _hurt_ him. Even with a warning, C.C. almost whipped away. He sank closer instead, trading his weight from the hand on Ricky's arms to the one still under his waist. “What the hell,” he spat.

“Right's broken,” Ricky grunted. “I knew you wouldn't go through with it if I said.”

“No I wouldn't go through with it—”

“Something had to look good.” Tracks led from the corners of Ricky's eyes.

“That wasn't fucking fair.”

“Oh, that wasn't? Is this not a fair situation we're in, Tinsley?”

“Ricky…”

“OK—look." Ricky shifted under him, shoulders and hips. The plastic bed rocked, unsteady. C.C. wouldn't have fit if he straightened his legs. For a second his expression was just impatient, not abnormal for him, and his thigh brushed the seam of C.C.’s pants, and C.C. took a turn to panic. The situation was a drugged-up nightmare, but just this on its own—Ricky so close, beneath him—that was all his wishbones and birthday candles, right there. And if he had an inopportune physical reaction, he didn’t want to imagine the new ways Ricky would think up to kill him.

“I can't fucking... cry on command,” Ricky said. “You have to make me.”

On the bright side, that killed the inopportune physical reaction. It was important to keep an eye on the bright side, C.C. felt.

“I’m sorry,” Ricky said. Which was a first. He pressed his head to C.C.’s.“I wanted him to keep letting you in, I didn’t mean for him to rope you in—if the arm thing is, if that’s too much for you. You can figure something else out.”

C.C. curled forward, pressing his forehead to Ricky's shoulder. His glasses were askew. He could think of _something else,_ dozens of other things. The scope of Ricky's trust dropped away in front of him. Things that felt like warnings, like threats, at the time; all the things Ricky let him know not to do. It was a fucking list of everything Ricky didn't want, and he'd let C.C. have all of it. Any of them would have been easier for C.C. than what he was going to have to choose. Any of a hundred little intimacies that wouldn't damage Ricky, so would feel easier to C.C. They’d all be worse for Ricky.

He wrapped his fingers around Ricky's right arm, gently. Ricky nodded against the side of his head, the sharp line of his brow hard against C.C.’s cheek. C.C. tightened his grip, gradually, bearing in with the heel of his palm.

 _What if he were wrong,_ he thought. If Ricky had trusted the wrong man, someone who would have—

And Fear thought he had. As far as Fear knew, was counting on, C.C. was that guy. Trusted to make Ricky better, Fear had handed him over to someone like that.

“Baby,” he said, Ricky's face wet against his with simple reflex tears from the pain, “we should kill that guy, right?”

Ricky arched into him again. C.C. didn't have time to worry he'd hurt him that badly before Ricky hissed, heavy in his ear, “I thought you'd never fucking ask.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Specific non-con warnings: rape is heavily implied as a threat twice; the second time, C.C. and Ricky go through the motions of C.C. assaulting Ricky—nothing sexual actually happens, but they’re physically close and they’re both unhappy about it.)
> 
> Well, pals... like I said, a long one! Last chapter should be back down to a more reasonable size LOL. But, you know, chime off, bros!


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ALL RIGHT FELLOW GHOULIGANS, here we are. Very late, but… here. A million thanks for the generous comments; you all really put me back on the path when some IRL stuff pulled me off it. This is definitively not shorter than the last chapter, because even reminding myself every day that I was just writing a short collection of scenes to celebrate Durch’s excellent Crime Saga universe, I still have very little self-control. 
> 
> Apologies to Zack Evans, whose father is, I'm sure, a wonderful man. 
> 
> There is another scene with some messy consent in this chapter, too; skip to the bottom for a more detailed warning, curate your experience, stay safe etc. 
> 
> Thanks for your patience, and I hope you enjoy!

He’d been wrong. Ricky wasn’t going to kill him. C.C. figured this out around the point he was choosing between a pistol and a lighter. He was going to pay for what he'd gotten from Ricky, but it wasn't going to be by dying.

C.C. had never killed anyone. He was no stranger to the urge, but he’d never been in any danger of committing the crime, because he ran into that rock solid piece of himself that said he could worry over every other moral quandary like a dog with a bone, anything but this one. A keystone engraved, _No. Not that._

Without that—without his own personal ethical rock bottom, _at least I've never, at least I won't_ —he found he was less buffeted by the howling winds of the moral void than he'd feared. Which was its own problem. It troubled him how easy it was, how clear it looked still. An obvious exception to the rule. A bright line of logic— _this world and life are all we have, ergo the worst possible thing to do is to end it, to take someone out of existence_ —moved obligingly to the side, accommodated an arc clear of one specific life. _Not this one._ Dr. Fear had disqualified himself.

Still. The fact remained. He'd never been party to a murder. He was hoping to take it easy the first time out.

That had never been Ricky's style, easing him into anything.

“Hello there, detective,” Lim said brightly when he'd unbolted the basement door. “There's been a change of plans.”

* * *

 

It made things easier, in practical terms. The asylum, as a whole, wasn't that heavy on the defenses. The inhabitants made up too much of a mixed bag for that to be cost-effective. Twenty buildings, miles of grounds, and in all that, nine out of ten patients were harmless. Mayflower Hall was different—a fortress—and most of the effort expended on their plan had gone into getting Ricky out of that building, past three guards and four locked doors and two desk clerks.

None of that turned out to be necessary. All C.C. had to do to get Ricky out was light a match.

Instead of leading the way down to the tunnel toward Mayflower and launching into the elaborate plot to bypass the guards into the cell block, Lim started straight up the stairs leading from the tunnel into Franklin Hall.

“What change, exactly?” C.C. followed him without hesitation—he trusted Lim, at least to be better at this than C.C. would ever be and too kind-hearted to abandon Ricky—but it felt like jerking the wheel to drive a car up onto the sidewalk. Ricky, his gut insisted, was in the other direction. He was going the wrong way.

“Well, I got to chatting with Mr. Goldsworth,” Lim said blithely, like that conversation had been a matter of dropping in on an apartment in the same building rather than a Herculean effort of sneakery or trickery or both. “He was worried about the timing, but I told him it was no problem. He has a standing appointment with—with his doctor, I guess, and that's not great for us? At least, we need a little free time before we're detected, so a doctor in the same room is a hassle.” He swung what looked like a can of paint, taking the steps two at a time. “ _But_ this way the guards won't notice Mr. Goldsworth's missing at five past the hour, so if we lock the doctor up well enough we could actually get more time out of this!”

C.C.'s throat closed. He kept a hand in his pocket, pistol pressed against his leg as he climbed the stairs. It was one of Ricky's, from the collection stashed around his house in Jasper. The ones in his L.A. apartment were tagged and bagged, long gone. C.C. had chosen the smallest one he could find for tonight, had considered not taking one at all. The plan would work or it wouldn't; he didn't want to rack up an incidental body count of nurses and orderlies just doing their jobs. And then... and then he'd thought about Ricky, trapped in this place, and he'd taken a gun after all. Small enough that he hoped not to do any accidental damage, but he did take it.

He was glad now. It was a swelling, crushing feeling. There was no reason, no good reason, for Fear to have Ricky in his office at midnight. He doubted the director had signed off on this.

The stairs were quiet, unguarded. The ground floor murmured with peaceful nighttime activity. It was a minimum-security ward, reserved for patients who wouldn't disturb the doctors working on the second floor. Taking Ricky here at night had been...

At the top, there was no murmur, no sound or light from beyond the heavy door. Lim handed C.C. the can of paint and produced a hairpin with a satisfied grin. It took him seconds to jimmy the lock. The hallway on the far side was dark, a rectangle of night sky framed at the far end. A blurred triangle of yellow light showed from under one poorly-fitted office door. C.C. couldn't hear anything over the blood rushing in his ears. He almost didn't believe it, that Fear could be up here alone with Ricky, without even a guard in the hallway. That anyone could be so stupid or so cruel. But he would, of course Fear would.

C.C. had needed to walk with him to the door, last time he left this place. He’d needed to leave Ricky with tears on his face, unable to move, the bone of his arm twisted. C.C. had made small talk with the man who’d all but written the script for that. Small talk, up until they were near the exit and Fear had asked, as delicately as possible, whether he could expect more help during their next session, perhaps more strictly along the lines of what they’d discussed. C.C. stammered something about a lifetime of circumspection and this situation being a bit bug-under-glass for him.

Fear nodded, though C.C. was unconvincing and he was unconvinced, and said that while they could look into more appropriate accommodations for their next session, C.C. would have to be prepared for the discomfort Ricky would doubtless continue to cause him. _“Crocodile tears, detective,”_ Fear said. _“The need for justice is inscribed too deep in the human soul for even Richard to escape its pull, the fulfillment it offers. He will fight, he will try to persuade you otherwise, but he knows, deep within himself… he knows there will be peace in having paid for his crimes.”_

“Lim,” C.C. said under his breath.

“Steven,” Lim whispered back. “I feel like we're past formalities, right? I haven't broken out of an asylum before, but it seems like a first-name occasion.”

“Sure. Steven. Listen—you better hang back when I open the door, OK?”

“Oh, I'm not going with you.” He brandished the pin. “I'm calling the fire department.” He nodded at the can dangling from C.C.'s hand. “Goldsworth wants that, though. You two take care of the doctor.”

C.C.'s circle of concern shrank by one. “That—right, that makes sense.” He waited until Steven was occupied getting through to the nearest office before he went to the lighted room and turned the doorknob, in fractions of inches. His chest hurt, all the way down through his arms, bracing himself for what he'd find.

It wasn't that bad. The worst thing—and his free hand was on the pistol—the worst thing, but at least it would have been over quickly—would have been to walk in on Fear hurting Ricky. C.C. would have shot him, but it would… he'd still have seen it.

C.C. didn't, in particular, want to walk in on Ricky sawing any pieces off Fear, either.

He didn't. It wasn't either of those. Ricky was fine, at first glance, and C.C.’s knees betrayed a mutinous weakness with the relief of seeing him up and about, no more injured than he'd been before. Fear was the one bound to the heavy-duty security chair; and he was unconscious and bleeding from the mouth but breathing and not dismembered.

“Rick,” C.C. said, gun heavy in his palm as he offered it. He held it barrel-out, an excuse to reach for Ricky.

“Ceece.” Ricky crossed the room in a blur, whirring into C.C.'s arms and yanking him down by the collar of his coat into a bruising kiss.

It was a breath of sweet air after too long underwater, at first—their teeth clacked and C.C.'s neck went hot from moving wrong, and Ricky tasted strange, like the wrong brand of cigarettes, but the kiss itself, the feel of Ricky's mouth and fingers, his elbows against C.C.'s ribs; this was everything C.C.'s lungs had been burning for. Except—

“We're on a tight schedule, but don't worry, I've already brought the doctor up to date. Thanks for getting this.” Ricky kissed the corner of C.C.'s mouth once more as he took the can of paint from his hand. “It's important to tell people what you're going to do before you do it, isn't it, doctor?” He wasn't looking at Fear as he spoke, eyes jittering around the room. His words came so fast they ran into each other. He slammed the can down on the desk and picked up a pair of scissors. They were were silver, the handles a series of ornate loops. “I've always really appreciated that—that courtesy. Tell them well beforehand, even, so they can spend a while thinking about it before it actually happens—that's thoughtful. Frame it nicely enough and it even sort of sounds like you're asking for permission, doesn't it?” He slammed the blades of the scissors under the lid of the can and pushed down on the handles, levering it off. They smeared the lid red, a single lick of color from the blades.

It wasn't paint. The sharp smell of pine, something cloying threaded through, tapped at C.C.'s senses. The lid clattered to the desk, that smear of red the only color on it. The liquid in the can was clear. There was plenty of wood and paper and cloth in the room; C.C. didn’t see that they needed turpentine.

“I mean, sometimes you change your mind. Sometimes you let them think about... about one thing but then you spring something else on them entirely. That's a therapeutic technique, I guess. I wouldn't really know. Personally, I think psychology is so much bullshit.” His breath came short.

“Ricky,” C.C. said. He still held the gun out by the barrel. He had a vague conviction that, of the two of them, Ricky was a better shot. He'd never actually seen Ricky fire a pistol, never heard him talk about it.

“Oh, thoughtful.” Ricky picked the can up, sloshing, and came back over to C.C. This time he took a detour on the way, to the chair where Fear was stirring, spitting blood onto the front of his white jacket, and he dumped the contents of the can over Fear's chest and shoulders. The smell flooded the room. C.C.'s eyes watered. Ricky dropped the can to the carpet, letting it soak in around Fear’s shoes, and he took the gun and checked the bullets, the safety, gestures fluid. His pulse hammered at the hollow of his throat, and now C.C. was looking properly, he could see that once again Ricky's pupils were blown so huge they swallowed his eyes. “You always know just what to get me, baby.”

The _except_ he'd been searching for struggled to the surface; Ricky was moving too fast, even for him. His skin was scorching hot. He'd never done any of these things in front of anyone, not even Bennett—never kissed C.C. in front of anyone, never used an endearment. Unless Ricky was running a raging fever, he was high as a kite.

“We have to go,” C.C. said, putting a hand out. He almost forgot himself and grabbed Ricky's wrist. He stopped at the last second, flipped his hand. An offer, not a demand.

“That's what I _just_ said, C.C., aren't you listening? We're going, we're in a hurry, I said that. We just have to finish up here very quickly.” He clapped his hands on the last two syllables, gun wavering, pointed at the floor. “Grab me a cigarette for the road, would you? They're on the desk.”

It didn't feel like wading into quicksand anymore. It was more like running down a hill, too fast to stop no matter how badly he wanted to. All he could do was go faster, one foot in front of the other in a thin pretext that he wasn't just falling.

“Ricky,” he said. “Do you know what he gave you?”

Ricky ran a hand through his hair. With no task to occupy them, his fingers shook. The gauntlet was still laced up his right arm, serving as a brace. “No. He doesn't—he talks about what the drugs will do to me, but not the names.” His eyes swam and he blinked. The light was low in the office, but it had to be agonizing with his pupils so open. “That's not important, my system will kick it sooner or later and we're in a hurry.”

“OK. We're going.” C.C. sounded a lot calmer than he felt. Ordinarily, there would be a certain comfort in thinking that, if he was running too fast downhill, at least Ricky was pushing him. This, the jerks in Ricky’s motions and the mania in his voice, felt more like Ricky was falling just as fast. “I hear you about the cigarettes, but I think you should let me use the gun.”

Ricky turned away from him. “I'm working on compromise,” he said. “I hear it's important in a relationship. Somebody told me that once. Oh, shit, probably it was you, Ceece.” He crossed to the desk, and circled behind it this time. He fell into the chair and spun in a circle, bare heels on the carpet, eyes tracing their way around the ceiling. “So it's up to you.” He put the pistol on the desk, too hard, and spun that in a circle too. He left it wobbling as he dumped the cigarettes on the desk and fumbled to catch one between his fingers. “But I’d like you to burn it. It’s a gesture.” And then he grinned, suddenly, ear to ear. “Make up your mind, though.” He snapped his fingers over and over in rapid succession. “We're in a rush.”

Fear coughed. Blood hit his legs. He groaned, bubbling with the sound, and stirred. Ricky flinched.

 _This isn't fair,_ C.C. thought. And then: _Oh, it isn't? Is this not a fair situation you're in, Tinsley?_

Ricky spun the cigarette between his fingers, crushing it. Fear's lighter glinted near the far edge of the desk, and the pistol wobbled to a halt behind it.

The menace that lurked behind Ricky, too huge a thing for his slight frame, filled the room like his shadow from the dim yellow lamp before him. His face was cracked too wide open, still, even now—he was almost free, Fear was bound and all but gagged. But Ricky’s face was bare, stripped to rage and terror, just the way it had when Fear's hand had been on him. C.C. had seen too much of this. He’d taken too much. He had to pay it back.

C.C. went over to the front of the desk. He sat on the edge, facing Fear. He lit two cigarettes, and handed one back to Ricky. The one he’d been holding was ruined anyway.

He'd imagined he might not be able to do this, that maybe he could justify it to himself in his head but wouldn’t be able to pull it off with his hands. To take a human being, sweating and blinking and breathing, brain churning on, and end it. But no, it felt doable, even now. It wouldn’t be fun. Nor would it be particularly hard. Not with Ricky’s face like a wound at his back.

“I want you to know it didn't have to happen this way,” C.C. said softly. He leaned forward. The lighter was warming in his fingers. The first drag of the cigarette was foul in his mouth, heavy in his lungs. He'd been smoking too much leading up to today, and this was a stronger brand than he was used to. “You didn't need to drug him. You didn't need to stay after-hours, alone with him. You could be safe at home in bed, doc. We'd have come for you eventually, but I could've talked him down a couple steps by then.”

One of Fear's pupils was open wider than the other. Pretty damn bad concussion, C.C. imagined. He looked from one to the other of them and despite that, his eyes shone with clarity. “I see,” he said, and paused to probe the damage to his tongue, sliding it over his teeth. He drooled blood. Ricky hadn't gone through with it, hadn't cut it off. He went on as if unaffected, unalarmed, and his speech was softened and twisted but not incomprehensible. “So this is how he’ll keep you. You should ask yourself, detective—what has changed? A year ago you couldn’t live with this man. To continue by his side would have killed you. This is an exercise in futility, to make believe you can carry him away and live happily ever after. Unless you admit that what’s changed—what is about to change—is you. Admit that he means to break you, if that’s what it takes. I think if you admit that to yourself, you won’t do this, detective. You don’t want to be what he would make of you.”

Even as he slurred and blood slicked his lips, there was a weight of certainty to what he said. Sweat bloomed at his temples and his breath came shorter, and C.C. knew he was throwing whatever came within reach at the wall to see if any of it stuck, because he was just a person, just someone who didn’t want to die. It was still hypnotic. And still none of it mattered.

C.C. let the tide in, let the surge of hatred he’d been keeping at bay crash through him. “The need for justice is inscribed deep in the human soul, right? Cheers, doc. Here’s to peace. You’re welcome.”

Fear let another rush of blood onto his chest. He was panting, blinking rapidly as he tried to focus on his last hope. His tone stayed calm, taking on an admonishing tinge, as if he were talking to a child. “Richard—”

“Doc,” C.C. said, “don't fucking talk to him.”

He tossed the cigarette. He'd planned on using the lighter, these last few seconds. He thought it was a little more dignified. Just a little. In this precise moment, he didn't want Fear to have even that.

The glowing tip of the cigarette caught the turpentine drenching Fear's shirt and pants and beard. A gasping inhale of oxygen, as if the shadow looming behind Ricky’s back really had taken a breath, and fire bloomed.

Fear screamed just once before Ricky said, “Ears, Ceece,” and fired the pistol.

C.C. had covered his ears. Even before Ricky spoke he'd moved to do that. He owed it to—himself, if nothing else—to listen to Fear, he thought. But he'd have heard him either way. He'd never heard a scream like that, anything that loud, anything that held that much suffering.

Fear only had time for the one, a long twisted rope of sound still lashing around the room. Then the wall and floor behind him were splattered red and gray. He kept moving, after, the fire snapping and muscles contracting, but he was gone. The heat struck out at them. The smoke was thick, greasy. The smell clamped its hands around C.C.'s insides.

C.C. sagged to the side, might have fallen or thrown up or something embarrassing. Ricky slid over the desk to sit next to him, bracing his arm around C.C.'s shoulders. “Let's go.”

“Yeah.” He gave Ricky a hand down. The carpet had caught fire. It was too hot to breathe. “Rick—”

“Fellas,” Lim said from the doorway, “the fire department's on its way, but they'll have to turn right back around when they get here at this rate. It shouldn't take this long to light a fire.”

The door wasn't open all the way. C.C. thought—hoped—that Lim couldn't see. Certainly, though, he could smell it. Certainly, he had heard the scream.“Don't look,” C.C. snapped, and pulled Ricky forward. “You're right, time to go.”

Lim was looking over his shoulder at the greasy black smoke filling the hallway, and C.C. put his free hand on Lim's shoulder as he shrugged out of his coat and handed it to Ricky. “Hope neither of you have a Wicked Witch of the West problem.”

They reached the car C.C. had hidden outside the back gate, dashing headlong through the pelting rain to the pitted service road through the woods. Behind them, the top floor of Franklin was a conflagration, painting the low clouds red and roaring under the wail of sirens.

* * *

It was a good plan. C.C. stood by that. Well, he stood by it being an OK plan. Well, he stood by it being the best plan they could hope for under the circumstances, being as the circumstances were... pretty dire. It was overall solid as plans went, and it had room to maneuver for a variety of worst-case scenarios. These included things like a flat tire as they fled the scene of the crime, or a state police barricade, or a shootout.

He'd been focused on things like that. Large, violent things, unpredictable. He'd failed to consider something relatively small, something that should have been glaringly obvious to him of all people.

“Ricky,” he said, for what felt like the three hundredth time. “You have got to get some sleep.”

They'd driven straight through the night. They were running on the fumes of that fire, back at Pennhurst. Its confusion, the other escapes that would have taken place during the distraction it provided, the scramble to count up evacuated patients and workers. C.C.'s hope was that they'd sift the ash and identify Fear's body before they realized who was missing. It was possible they wouldn't; it was possible the director of Pennhurst would alert the police immediately. Just to be on the safe side.

C.C., to be on the safe side, had beat them to it yesterday morning. The road into Jasper from the north—the one real road, a narrow curving slash down the cliffs of the coast—was blocked. A single cop car was parked diagonally across the yellow line. POLICE—TOWN OF JASPER, it said on the door. The bottom arm of the T had largely rusted off.

“I really hope you're right about this,” Lim said, sliding low. His knees hit the back of C.C.'s seat.

“He doesn't have to be _that_ right.” Ricky had been drumming his fingers, tapping his feet, fiddling with the stereo, knocking his elbow into the door, for the entire drive. Now he collected the cloud of frantic energy sparking around him and his fingers were sure on the pistol.

“Jesus. This is why I didn't let you drive.” C.C. reached to the passenger's seat and pulled a corner of his coat, still wrapped around Ricky, over the gun. Without the persistent roar of the engine to drown it out, the rain hammered on the roof so loud it sounded like it wanted in.

Sheriff Evans—the entire full-time police force of Jasper, several volunteer deputies as needed under his command—stepped out of his car into the downpour and approached the driver's side. Lim slouched lower. Evans never looked in the back of the car. As he bent to the driver's window he took his hat off and held it to his chest. “Rain's bad. This road could wash out by morning. Local traffic only.” He was looking past C.C., to Ricky.

Ricky, for once in his life of his own volition, didn't say a word. He nodded.

Evans set his elbows on the window and looked deep into C.C.’s eyes. “You got forty bucks?”

“Jesus Christ, man,” C.C. said, digging the heel of his hand into the gun in case Ricky went for it. What Ricky did, though, was laugh.

“Nah, I’m kidding you. I'll move the vehicle.” Evans replaced his hat, blond hair gone brown in the rain and dark. He patted the frame of C.C.'s window. “Welcome back.”

From there, it had been simple. Or should have been. Within a quarter of an hour, C.C. was handing the car key off to Bennett and hustling Ricky and Lim through the bone-soaking curtains of rain, past the trees starting to toss and reach and wail, and into the house. Just like that, all those big, unpredictable hurdles of the first day had been jumped.

The house settled over Ricky, easing him, tension unravelling down his back and pooling at his feet. He put the house on like a beloved old robe and already, with Ricky in it, C.C. didn't hate it anymore. The dark, the empty spaces, the smell of dust and wood and leather, they all added up differently with Ricky beside him.

It hit him then that it had worked. He'd gotten Ricky out. They weren't done yet, weren't safe, but they'd made it home. Ricky was really here. C.C. wanted to say something, couldn't think what. He didn't need to; Ricky's fingers slipped between his and closed tight enough to ache.

“I still can't believe you were right.” Lim shook water off his hair and squeezed out the hem of his shirt. “Does that cop owe you lots of money?”

Ricky shrugged out of C.C.'s coat, draping it over his arm without letting go of C.C.'s hand. “He owes me for killing his dad.”

“Oh wow, OK.” Lim backed away a step.

“Let's all play nice,” C.C. interjected. “We're stuck with each other for a little bit. Stuck... really close together, at first.”

Ricky paused halfway through a deep inhalation of a half-century's dust and furniture polish. “What the hell does that mean?”

“You're not going to love this plan, baby, but we don't know how much time we have before the state police turn up. Could be any second.”

Ricky's eyebrows took an impressive jump. “And we're dealing with that by...?”

“I said you wouldn't love it, so eliminate the options with guns and knives.”

“Oh... come on, Ceece, I just got _out_ —”

But he'd had to concede that it made the most sense. Coming to the house had been a gamble, but having made it there, it was safest to lie low. And there was only one way, at least at first, to lie low enough that the police couldn't spot them.

The house was old, though not as old as it looked, and pretentious. It had all the bells and whistles—curving staircase, creepy dumbwaiter, twice as many dining rooms as a reasonable human being required in the course of their day. And it had a hidden room. C.C., who'd done a lot of numbed standing around the place while the police searched the house a year ago, could swear on a stack of Bibles that they didn't know. It was a novelty secret room, a prank, a little space below the library that was probably right there in the blueprints. But no one had ever bothered to look at those, so the only people who knew about the room were C.C. and Ricky and Bennett. And, now, Steven Lim.

Steven clapped when Ricky opened the bookcase and led them down the stairs. “This is _so neat,_ ” he said, bouncing around the twelve-foot cube and admiring the stacks of old paintings someone had forgotten down there. And then, within the half-hour, he'd clambered into dry clothes and collapsed on one of the cots C.C. had dragged down yesterday, and was fast asleep.

Which was when C.C. realized what a blindingly stupid mistake he'd made. Identified that relatively small oversight.

He'd gotten Ricky out, fine; he'd also set him up for a nervous breakdown.

Ricky started pacing the second Lim's eyes shut. He practically rebounded off the walls. His pupils were still too big, his fingers still twitching. The skin beneath his eyes was a thin, translucent purple.

“Can I take a look at your arm?” C.C. wasn't going to be able to do shit for a broken bone, but at least Ricky would have to hold still.

Ricky shrugged, lips pursed, and sat abruptly on the edge of the other cot. C.C. took the floor in front of him, hoping to telegraph that Ricky would have the cot to himself. He'd never slept in the same room as Ricky, never mind the same bed. It was hitting him now that there was probably a pretty compelling reason for that, and not one he should be making Ricky explore right now, sleep-deprived and pumped with three months' worth of mystery drugs.

C.C. took Ricky's left arm first, running his fingers up the vein in his wrist.The skin was too smooth after all that time laced into the gauntlet, the sickly, gummy softness of oxygen deprivation. The vein was studded with bruises—injection sites. At least they'd had to unlace it long enough for that, or there could have been more damage done, sores and infection at the very least. C.C. pressed the inside of Ricky's wrist to his own cheek. It made sense to him in the moment, a sleep-deprived attempt to warm him up. His fingers felt frigid.

“Get it off me,” Ricky said suddenly, and C.C. realized he was staring at the gauntlet still laced up his right arm. “C.C., come on, make it—get it off.”

“Yeah, yeah, sure thing.” He set Ricky's left arm back down carefully and got to work on the knot.

“Who's here?” Ricky squeezed his eyes shut. “Who's in the room right now.”

“Just us.” The first tendrils of panic unfurled in C.C.’s chest. He didn't know how long it would take for this to leave Ricky’s system. He had no idea what to do until then. “You, and me, and Lim's asleep. Bennett's upstairs. No one is getting past him. I think he broke out the old blunderbuss from over the fireplace.” He unthreaded the lace holding the leather closed.

Ricky nodded frantically, all the cool, every bit of collection he'd achieved in the car fracturing. His eyes darted to Lim, a curled lump under the covers, and his voice dropped even lower. “No one else was with us all the way here. You would have noticed if anyone else was in the car.”

“Yes. Absolutely, I—you know, I was actually on red alert for that specifically. Police behind us, stray hitchhikers crawling in with us. My two topmost concerns.” There was nowhere else to put Lim where he'd be safe if the cops showed up. He couldn't give Ricky any more privacy than he had right now. He hoped Lim had the sense to fake sleep if he woke. He'd worked the lace loose enough to get the gauntlet off, but he paused. “Do you want to, um. Tell me. What you think—who you think is here?”

Ricky shook his head, teeth sinking into his lip. He stared at C.C. intently, refusing to look at something behind him so clearly that C.C.'s skin prickled like it was really standing there.

“OK. I'm taking this off now, alright?” He slid the gauntlet open, though he left it under Ricky's arm. The bruising on his forearm was even more spectacular than that on his face, an angry stain spreading up from the elbow like a spill, every shade of blue. It struck C.C. how pale Ricky's arms were—darker than C.C., still, but deathly for Ricky, and underscored by the raw quality of their softness. It didn't look particularly swollen, at least. “Did they set it?”

Ricky nodded. “Both times.”

“Both—” C.C. started, and then he stopped and leaned away. He felt sick. They'd set it the second time because of him. The fresh bruising was because of him. He'd done that to Ricky.

“I asked you to. You only did what I asked you to.”

C.C. swallowed hard. He shook his head. “I did it. I have to... I still did it, so I have... deal with it. That's all. Not your problem.”

“It is. You're my problem.” Ricky managed, blinking too fast and hands shaking, to summon a smile that made that the sweetest thing he'd ever said to C.C.

C.C. turned and pushed his back to the cot. He couldn't look him in the face anymore. “I'm sorry,” he said. “It took me too long. It was all a—all a waste, all that time you were in jail.” He didn't say it out loud, that—positions reversed—Ricky would have gotten him out sooner. It would never even have reached the point C.C. was stuck on, both of the times he'd walked out and left Ricky. He knew it was silly, childish even; Ricky, too, would have needed some time. A plan. He couldn't help picturing it another way. If it had been Ricky—if he'd walked in on C.C. strung up, in tears—he would have taken care of it right then and there.

“I don't know about a waste.” Ricky curled his fingers in C.C.'s hair, then pressed them harder until they stopped shaking. He pulled C.C.'s head over until he was resting against Ricky's knee, shoulder pressed to Ricky's calf. “I mean, here we are.”

Ricky's hands on him, the pressure of his knee against C.C.'s temple, broke from the individual points of contact into pools of sensation that swept down C.C.'s spine. At that—at _here we are_ —something else joined them, a slow tide of dread. And then, sluggishly, denial. He sat up straight, kissed Ricky's wrist on his way as he stood. “I've got a different brace. Can you—get into those dry clothes. You've got to sleep, Rick. I don't know what else we're going to do about the drugs, I don't know if it's safe to give you painkillers…”

Ricky nodded. He looked so exhausted C.C. really thought he might pass out. Stupid of him. If Ricky didn't want to sleep, he wasn't going to; his willpower was probably somewhere on the verge of the ability to spontaneously knit his own bone back together.

C.C. spent as long as he humanly could rummaging in the boxes of books, spare clothes, and nonperishable food he’d stocked down here, but when he turned back Ricky hadn’t made any progress with his clothes. He was just pacing back and forth between piles of paintings, lips moving silently.

“Come on, your arm.”

“Oh... Sure, I knew there was something.” He backed away a step when C.C. came toward him, eyes darting back to the stairs.

“Just me.” C.C. ostentatiously looked the room over. He didn't mean it to be condescending, but worry was harping at his already-low reserves, whispering _overdose_ and _withdrawal_ and pointing out they couldn't go to a hospital. And here Ricky was walking around jostling a broken bone. “No ghouls.”

“I'm not a fucking child, I'll ask you if it's that bad.”

“Alright, alright… Can I see your arm again?”

Ricky sat down. The gauntlet was crumbled on the floor in the far corner, and C.C. made a note to get rid of it as he knelt in front of Ricky and laid the splint along his thigh. He closed his fingers gingerly around the broken arm. It was hot, nothing like his left. The bruises glared. “Jesus, this doesn't look great.”

“It'll be alright.” Ricky was looking at the arm suspiciously, like it didn't belong to him.

“Sure, eventually. I'm just saying it's messed up right now.” The splint was elastic stretched over four struts, with a row of hook-and-eye closures; it looked like it was made to protect a sprain, not correct a break. But they'd had to stick to what they had in the house. No trail of suspicious purchases. C.C. did the closures up one by one. It would've been easier to pull them in little groups, but he was stalling. He wanted to ask, and he couldn't yet. Ricky needed to sleep.

“I shouldn't have.” Ricky leaned forward—collapsed, almost, burying his face in C.C.'s shoulder, though he held his own shoulders stiff and his spine straight. “In the hospital. Asked you to do that. I'm not—thinking straight.”

“Yeah, well.” C.C. held still. He wanted to pull away. Or he felt he should pull away, and what he wanted was to put his arms around Ricky. “I am, and I'm the one who used the lighter.” He gave in and put a hand on Ricky's back. His spine pressed into C.C.'s palm and his ribs felt as hot as the break in his arm. “I should go upstairs to wait for the cops,” he said. “We want to throw them off any way we can. Stir some mud up, confuse the reflection. Bennett’s got the car up on blocks like it’s broken, he’ll verify I was here all night…”

“Great.” Ricky drew back. “Good plan.” C.C. had half-expected him to take over by now, adjust the details of the plan until suddenly they were in another getaway car with guns blazing by the very next morning. He said, “Where do we go from here, then? In the brief time left before I develop black lung, or whatever it is you’re always complaining about up here.”

“It’s black _mold_ , because the inches per annum of rainfall in this town is unnatural. But I think we should all bear up and breathe through our shirts a little longer. The legal authorities are going to be looking at... ports of call, that kind of thing. They expect you to leave the country. If we let them tire themselves out, run through their budgets…”

“And then leave the country,” Ricky finished. He was playing with the collar of C.C.’s shirt, undoing the button and trying to push it back through one-handed. “I'm not staying locked up in my own house for the rest of my life like... like Mrs. Rochester.”

“Well, she was in the attic, so it'd be very different. But I agree it'd be a little much. Especially since I'd have to keep Lim, too, and that's... that's excessive. They'd have laughed Ms Bronte out of the printing house, if she came in with _two_ secret wives.”

“We'll flee to South America to get away from your fear of subpar literary devices, got it.”

“Sure. Well, you know. Yes. You'll... you'll definitely flee. To South America, if you want. I've been thinking it might make more sense—I could send you money if I stay here. If I go with you, it would make us both easier to trace, and I wouldn't have access to your accounts so—”

“Bullshit.” The word rolled over everything else C.C. had been saying and crushed it, and then Ricky sped up again, words running together, the pell-mell race that C.C. worried meant Ricky didn’t mean to say it out loud: “Why would you not come with me, after—what else do you _want_ from me?”

“I think,” he said, slowly. “I think the point is more, um. What else do you want from me.”

Ricky’s fist was closed around both sides of C.C.’s collar, pulling it tight. “How? How the fuck is that the question?”

C.C. tapped Ricky’s fingers, reminding him, and his grip loosened. “Did you, um…” _Not now,_ he told himself, but the thing was. He knew. He knew the answer. “You knew I'd break you out. Before, I mean, when you turned yourself in, you already knew.”

__“You're welcome. It was a vote of confidence.” The light was low down here, but it was enough to shadow Ricky’s eyelashes and cheekbones dramatically. He was always most beautiful when he was smiling, but even now, even confused and bordering on angry, he was so...._ _

__“No, I see that, baby. I'm flattered.” He let his hand fall to the bed. He couldn't quite meet Ricky's eyes. “Did you... know... that I'd kill someone?”_ _

__Ricky leaned back further yet. It put his eyes in line with C.C.'s. “Did I set you up for it.”_ _

__“Sure. Did you know what it would _take_ and actively work to create those circumstances. Yeah.” _ _

__“Not—” Ricky broke off. He released C.C.’s collar, put his hand over C.C.’s on the bed. His fingers slid over and through C.C.’s and his face was doing something C.C. couldn't read, which didn't make his full mouth any less kissable. “I was going to—I wanted us to be even.”_ _

__“OK.” He flipped his hand so he could hold Ricky's. He'd been thinking a lot about _“You know what I am”_ —because he did. He always had. He'd decided to find a way to live with it when he decided to get Ricky out. _ _

__That scream rang louder in his ears all the time, higher, until it was a constant whine on the edge of his hearing._ _

__“I’m sorry.” It sounded genuine, but there was something else there too, a distant cold ring that raised the hair on the back of C.C.'s neck. Regardless of whether Ricky meant to say this, C.C. could already tell he didn't want to hear it. “I didn't mean to do it like that. I was going to set him on fire myself and give you the gun, so you could put him out of his misery.”_ _

__C.C. swallowed, and Ricky raised his hurt arm to run a finger down the line of C.C.’s throat. “And now we’re… even.”_ _

__“Not just because you killed him. Wasn’t—” his voice tripped, fell into something ugly, “wasn't I sweet like that—”_ _

__“ _Jesus_ , Ricky!” C.C. lashed out and caught his elbow, shook him a little, at maybe the worst moment to stop getting permission before touching him, but... “You think I wanted that?” _ _

__Nothing happened; he laid a hand on Ricky and no retribution, divine or malign, rained down on his head. Ricky just held still as a wild animal not sure it was worth making a break for the exit. Which was... worse. C.C. pulled his hand away, palm scalding._ _

__“Didn't do anything for you, huh?” It still sounded ugly, a simmering rage pressed so low it was escaping through every crack. “Riding in on a white horse turns out not to be your thing?”_ _

__C.C. exhaled slowly, evenly. Every second of the guilt-soaked gratification he'd felt when Ricky fell into his arms roiled in his stomach. Every second since of knowing he’d have to pay for what he’d taken. “OK,” he said. “Sure. You’ve gotten me out of scrapes. It was nice to get you out of one. It was… gratifying. But I… baby, I feel like one of us is speaking a dead language, here, and I’ve been sorely underestimating what we’re losing in translation. If you wanted to do me a favor and let me sweep you off your feet, we could maybe have tried that without you getting your bones broken. I want to help out if you’re hurt, yeah. I don’t ever want you to get hurt so that I can help out.”_ _

__“Well, I think,” Ricky said, one word at a time. It was enough to give C.C. whiplash, it was so much slower than he'd been talking up until now. “After that. We're even. I showed you.” Ricky pulled on his hand. C.C. thought he was trying to get loose, but he held on, tugged C.C.'s hand to his chest as he leaned toward him. “I showed you,” he repeated fiercely. “All I did was show you what he was. He fucking deserved it.”_ _

__“He did,” C.C. said, sincerely. And that was the problem. He really believed that, so now… anyone might. It was an uncomfortable new world. “But you knew I didn't want to—do that, and you painted me into a corner anyway. On purpose. That's a sticking point for me, Rick.”_ _

__Ricky stared down at him. He looked, and kept looking. C.C. could all but feel the wheels in his head spinning, overheated. His expression was bordering ever-closer on hurt. C.C. braced himself for another sweeping speech, an unfurling of rationalizations that would drive itself further between them. “Oh,” Ricky said, finally._ _

__“‘Oh’?” C.C. repeated._ _

__“You’re not… wrong. That’s…” Ricky pulled away and balled his fists in his lap. He looked suddenly past C.C. at Lim and sighed shakily. “Fair.” He jerked only a little at the soft knock at the top of the stairs._ _

__“Bennett. I really better get up there.” C.C. leaned in as he stood, slowly, and when Ricky didn't pull away he kissed his forehead. “You've got to sleep, Ricky. Do you want—I could send him down here?”_ _

__Ricky nodded. C.C. was still waiting for something, but Ricky looked increasingly cut off, lost in thought. He lost some of the tension in his shoulders when C.C. mentioned Bennett, and nodded._ _

* * *

 

__The state cops, when they showed up, had a search warrant. They also wanted to question C.C. at the station. They didn’t have a warrant for that part, but C.C. recognized a fine way to waste a monumental amount of time when he was offered one. He obliged, and spent so long talking about his true to life crime novel he convinced himself he was writing one. It was nearly twenty-four hours later that he finally got back to the house in Jasper._ _

__“There’s a cop out front,” Bennett said when C.C. walked in. He had the best silver out on the dining room table, halfway through polishing it and moving it back to wherever it had been before Ricky got home. “Evans and Tan keep bringing him coffee and chatting with him.”_ _

__“See, that’s the kind of welcome you get in a nice little town like this,” C.C. said, comfortably, and then had second thoughts. “Jesus, are they poisoning him?”_ _

__“They’re distracting him. You’re very morbid, Tinsley.”_ _

__“Yeah, I don’t know where I get that.”_ _

__When he walked back into the hidden room, Ricky almost stabbed him._ _

__“ _Detective,_ ” Lim said, through the hand he’d clapped over his own mouth; it was a tough word to get out at high speed, but Lim managed, and saved C.C. a great deal of bleeding. _ _

__C.C. didn't take it personally, given the circumstances, but he did grab Ricky's arm and make full use of his limited advantages—height and length of limb—to pin Ricky against himself. He'd have felt guiltier about it, but he suspected Ricky would opt for this over the stabbing too, in a second._ _

__“Ricky,” he said, talking fast, bracing himself because the truth was that if Ricky kept at it, C.C. couldn't stop him. “Jesus, baby, it's me, it's just me.”_ _

__There was a bad moment then, right before Ricky went lax—they both felt it, the shock of the second Ricky tried to break free with brute force and _couldn't_. He wasn't stronger than C.C., now. He'd still have won a prolonged, tactical fight. Judging by the way Ricky stumbled back like C.C. had shoved him, that thought was cold comfort if it had occurred to Ricky at all. _ _

__“Sorry.” Ricky pushed a hand through his hair and dropped the knife. “Shit, sorry.”_ _

__C.C. stuck his hands in his pockets, leaned back against the wall beside the door, precluded sudden movements any way he could. “Are you still hallucinating, or are you really sore at me?”_ _

__"Just keeping you on your toes." He knit his fingers together._ _

__“Him!” Steven protested. “You gave me just as much of a heart attack.”_ _

__“We’ll never make it into the guidebooks as a hospitable town at this rate,” C.C. agreed. “Have you slept yet? Snatched a quick forty winks? Maybe ten?”_ _

__It didn't look like it. Ricky's face was drawn, tight and paper-thin. He looked like he was... not just exhausted, but starving. He shrugged._ _

__“Rick…” A colder, older cousin of panic scrabbled in C.C.'s chest. They couldn't go to a hospital. It was just them. “OK. Look, come with me.”_ _

* * *

 

__It was, no question, a risk. Calculated, but still dumb. C.C. went ahead and took it. He really didn’t want to explain to Ilnyckyj and Bianchi that he’d gotten Steven stabbed by involving him in an unintentional sleep-deprivation experiment._ _

__While the secret room was nearly foolproof, it wasn’t the only place unlikely to be searched. And at least the top floor had a—dubious—exit strategy. The top room of the house was barely more than a widow’s walk, the cupola enclosed but uninsulated. There was a bed up there, though no electric light. The windows faced the forest and the sea beyond them. Even if the cops stormed in, Ricky could slip through a window and wait them out in the nooks and crannies provided by the ornate roofline._ _

__He didn’t wait for an emergency. C.C. hadn’t even articulated this last recourse before Ricky had a window open and was sitting on the sill, feet on the roof._ _

__“Rick,” C.C. started, but honestly, he was probably safer out there. The back of the house was choked off in the dark of night. The cops would need sneak undetected into the backyard hauling a spotlight to catch a glimpse of him. “OK, but would you get on the bed when you… Don’t get to snoring and roll off there.”_ _

__Ricky looked over his shoulder. There was enough light, just, clambering up the stairs and down the hall; C.C. could make out Ricky’s smile. Not one of the blinding ones that lit up his whole body, but still a real one, fond and soft. “I need to talk to you.”_ _

__“You need to sleep.”_ _

__“Are you so scared of a couple of acres of woods in the dark you have to run back inside right now, Tinsley?” Ricky slipped over the edge and held a hand back to help C.C. out, grin growing, voice climbing for comedic effect. He’d always been able to get C.C. this way, right from the beginning._ _

__C.C. let Ricky help him down. “Goddamn it, Rick. I'm not scared of it, but for the record, it's technically a forest, so if it did unnerve me slightly—”_ _

__Ricky was snickering as he sat, careless, on the slope of the tiles and dug his heels in. “You're such a damn city boy. It's a Winnie-the-Pooh woods.”_ _

__“We'll see who's laughing if Pooh Bear does come barreling out of those trees.”_ _

__“Shut up, bears don't climb houses—as a matter of _choice_ , they could if they wanted, so don't start with me.” He sounded better already, allowing himself the kind of pointless irritation with C.C.’s incorrect wildlife fear priorities he couldn’t have afforded in the haze of whatever he’d been feeling in the basement. _ _

__“Fine. Sure thing. Bears are out there every day deciding, 'you know what, I think I won't scale the side of that three-story buffet because it's just not interesting enough to demand any further attention from me.’ That’s what's happening.” C.C. lowered himself slowly, moving blind. The moon was out, and all the stars, but clouds scudded by rapidly. The light shifted through phases of gray, and in the shadow of the cupola the surface beneath him was black pool afloat in the sea of heaving silver treetops._ _

__Ricky turned to look up the slight incline of the roof at him. His vision was adjusting, and C.C. could make out the highlights of his features, the dark of his eyes. “You’re right,” he said. “Not about bears, shut your mouth about bears before they hear you disrespecting them. But I’m—sorry. I was worried about you, Ceece. Something had to give, and I didn’t want it to be you. So I thought. If I showed you that some people deserve it.” He pulled his knees up to his chest with a faint rasp of rubber soles on tile and hooked his arms around them, the elbows of his shirt glowing white under the moon. “I've seen you in pretty shitty condition. I mean, sure, a couple of times it was my fault to start with—”_ _

__“Don't give yourself too much credit, I can jump in over my head just fine without a push.”_ _

__“—and I had all the money and everything, and that night—when I said you didn't have anything but me, I sounded just like.” He broke off, a finality to it like he'd never even intended to finish the sentence, except he laughed, a bleary sound aimed at his knees. “This is why. I can't say any of this, Ceece, I've tried. When you found out about. About my parents. I tried to tell you.”_ _

__“Did you? I remember that being a very brief conversation.” He also remembered it being the angriest he'd ever seen Ricky._ _

__“That's what I mean. I just. I can't. So I thought... I'd show you, and you'd save me, and we'd be even. And... sure. Maybe you'd be right, and the system would work. I wanted to try. But if you were wrong, if anything happened, you'd get me out, and... yeah. You'd see. You’d have to see.”_ _

__“If?” C.C. slid another inch down the roof, determinedly not thinking about all the heinous venomous insects lurking in the moss. “Did you—let things happen because you were waiting for me to stop them—” _How many things, for how long, how late was I?_ _ _

__

__“That was the plan.” Ricky's voice was indistinct, mouth pressed to his knees._ _

__

__Something brushed C.C.'s thigh. He jumped more than was dignified, visions of disease-carrying roof-rats dancing in his head, before he realized it was Ricky's knuckles. He dropped his hand to twine their fingers together. "And?" His world was still tilting, the deck of a ship on its way to the bottom. _How many things, for how long_ , again—what if the orderly Ricky maimed had deserved it, what if a guard at the prison, what if another prisoner, what if Ricky had been transferred because..._ _

__

__“Ran into some problems going through with it,” Ricky said, still muffled. “I got sent to solitary for beating the shit out of a guy who cut in front of me in the cafeteria, my first week in prison.”_ _

__

__“Ricky,” C.C. laughed, giddy on the emptiness left by a tidal surge of anxiety draining out of him._ _

__

__Ricky laughed too, creaky and breathless. “I didn't think I’d ever see him again,” he said, in a rush. C.C.'s fingers creaked under his, he'd clamped down so tight all of a sudden, which was how C.C. knew who he was talking about. “I—this is so... fucking stupid. I was stupid. I spent so long... I was scared of him, growing up, all the time, like he was a bogeyman. I forgot he was, um. Just a... just a man with a job. So I didn't fight the transfer, and then I got there and it was. Him.”_ _

__

__C.C. tugged Ricky's hand onto his chest, folded it between both of his. “You weren't stupid. He shouldn't have been there. I was wrong. I was... very wrong. Monumental. Astronomical. Planetary bodies of wrongness.”_ _

__

__Ricky shrugged. “Me too.” He sat back, releasing C.C.'s hand, and slid toward the window. “Come on.”_ _

__

__C.C. had lost track of where this could be going, but he followed, hoping the answer wasn't a secret vault. If Ricky tried to buy him off he was going to lose it, and if Ricky was going to kill him, he didn't want his body stashed in a vault. The insects and rats were welcome to him post-mortem._ _

__

__It wasn't a vault; it wasn't even out of the room. Ricky helped him through and smoothed a palm up C.C.'s ribs and chest, wrapped his fingers around the back of his neck and tugged him into a kiss. It was a swaying, whole-body affair, tugging C.C.'s nerve endings into bunches and setting them alight all the way to the base of his spine. C.C. grabbed a handful of Ricky’s shirt at his back and tugged, because this was bizarre timing even for Ricky. “Should we maybe discuss,” he started, but each word was a real labor of Hercules with Ricky undoing his belt and grinning wickedly at him._ _

__

__“We will,” Ricky promised. “After.”_ _

__

__C.C. fell bodily into it, the familiarity of Ricky's lips and teeth, the shape of his jaw and the drag of his eyelashes, the firm press of his hands. Novelties presented themselves—Ricky's hips dug into his thumbs, and his breath came in pants against C.C.'s cheek before they'd even gotten started, where usually it took him much longer to warm up—but Ricky was home, in control, as he steered C.C. where he wanted him._ _

__

__That was off, a bit, too; usually he backed C.C. into something. He was pulling C.C. forward, and dropping away from his mouth—sitting on the bed. He made quick work of C.C.'s belt, the slight motion rendering every tug of his trousers agonizing, and grabbed C.C.'s suspenders, pulling him down on top. C.C. went along with this, too, followed Ricky up the bed, even as an alarm started to tick alive in his head. All the rest of his body was a livewire, a fuse burning itself toward dynamite, sensation magnetized to every point Ricky made contact with him—Ricky, under him, rippling into him—like—_ _

__

__It wasn't like in the cell. Ricky wanted him here._ _

__

__“There's slick in one of the bathrooms,” Ricky said, a low jumble of words C.C. didn't entirely follow. The thigh pressed between his legs was slimmer than it had been last time they did this but still strong, still sure. He couldn't work out what Ricky was doing with his hands; they brushed against his stomach and chest, but only incidentally. His words came on a rush of hot breath against C.C.'s neck and collarbone, wet with kisses. “I might get a little—you're stronger anyway, now is probably the best time, actually—I want you,” he emphasized this by pressing closer and leaving negative zero doubt about any shades of meaning there, “you just might have to sort of... remind me, once we get going, can you?”_ _

__

__“Hang on,” C.C. said, although he didn't, personally, slow down any. Even as the warning in his head crept up in volume and started flashing red lights, even as he reminded himself this was the worst possible time, they were halfway through a pretty life-altering disagreement, he didn't slow down, because he'd missed Ricky so much and this felt so simple. Why would he keep arguing when he could have his hands on Ricky, on his chest and waist, skin scorching his fingers—that was what he'd been up to, unbuttoning his shirt—_ _

__

__Ricky's good arm was crooked around C.C.'s shoulders, and he hauled him closer, nose tracing a line behind C.C.'s ear. C.C. was drunk on it, permission for all of this, fingers clambering lower to where Ricky's pants were loose around his hips, belt undone. Ricky clamped up, lifting himself off the bed to plaster himself against C.C., trapping his hand._ _

__

__“Like that,” Ricky said, a tripping little chant under his breath, “keep going, it's OK, we're OK, keep going, Ceece, C.C., it's OK.”_ _

__

__The alarm snapped into focus. “Ricky. Ricky, Jesus, stop.” C.C. grabbed his face and kissed him, which was perhaps a mixed message. Ricky deepened the kiss, tongue sending a shiver straight C.C.'s gut, but he broke away again. “No, wait, I mean it, hang on.” He kissed the crook of Ricky's elbow apologetically, but reach up and unwound his arm from C.C.'s shoulders. He lowered Ricky to the bed and sat up to put some distance between them. It was darker in here than it had been outside. He couldn't make out Ricky's expression. Which, tactically, on Ricky's part..._ _

__

__“What's wrong?”_ _

__

__“I'm figuring that out. Got the ol' detective brain working on it.” Sitting back had wedged his knees between Ricky's thighs, and he ran a hand experimentally up Ricky's left leg until his thumb was wedged in the crease of his hip. Ricky stayed perfectly still—_ _

__

__—an animal not sure making a break for the exit was worth it—_ _

__

__—and C.C. swiped a hand across his own mouth, hard. “Let's be... I'd like you to articulate what you think is happening here.”_ _

__

__“Mother of God, Tinsley.” Ricky’s elbows showed up stark white again when he put his hands to his forehead. “We're going to—if I say 'fuck' are you going to call a halt and get enough candles and roses that I take it back and say 'making love,' or can you not be a teenage girl about this?”_ _

__

__“OK. Don't tempt me, I really might go down and at least grab some daisies from the yard. Speaking of, um, ambiance, why exactly do you all of a sudden want to make sweet, slow, romantic love?”_ _

__

__“Because you do. We'll be even. I mean, Christ, C.C., it's not like I don't want you, I just have—trouble—with this. I'm sorry if I get, you know, if I get confused, but you can just—I’m telling you to go ahead. You’re not forcing me, I made a decision.”_ _

__

__“Right.” Cold seeped down C.C.’s throat, through his chest. “Like killing—like I wanted Fear dead, but I wouldn't have gone through with it unless you tipped me over the edge.”_ _

__

__“Yes! What do you want, a contract to sign?”_ _

__

__“Well, no, because I'm not signing that.” He pulled away, scooting back to sit against the footboard. The change in angle was brutal, but he bore up; he'd come close to getting shot and stabbed recently, so this was small potatoes. “If you don't... if you think I want you to bite your tongue through sex because you owe me, I don't know how to express to you that you're very wrong. We're not only not on the same page, I think you're reading a different book entirely.”_ _

__

__The darkness rustled as Ricky sat up straight. “Right,” he snapped, “in a dead language. It always feels like that to me, Ceece, I don’t get people, but at least I’m trying for you—I don’t—tell me what you fucking _want_.” _ _

__

__“Come here, come on.” He held a hand out, blind, in Ricky's direction. “You know I live in mortal terror of bats. C'mere and keep me safe.”_ _

__

__Ricky held out for a moment longer. Then he shuffled forward to kneel between C.C.'s legs. “I don’t know how else to prove it to you, what do you want me to do?”_ _

__

__C.C. found the sides of Ricky's shirt and hooked them together, matched them as best he could and started buttoning them, beginning at the hollow of Ricky's throat. “I want to know you're not going to put me—strike that, put _either_ of us—in a position like that again. I want… the opposite of a big gesture. I appreciate the sentiment, but I want an absence of gestures. I want you to promise me.” _ _

__

__“Done.”_ _

__

__C.C. laughed. “Oh, yeah? That was easy.”_ _

__

__“It is. I want you to be OK. I just want you to be OK _with_ me.” _ _

__

__The hum and crackle, the whispers in the night air, rose and fell around them. He could believe they were at sea, if he closed his eyes and listened to the slow back-and-forth crash of branches in the wind. Like waves. Like a dead language. And that was it, C.C. thought, remembering the blank incomprehension on Ricky's face at _"do you think that helped"_ , remembering _"I don't know what you're looking for"_. He did know what Ricky was—better, now. Well enough to meet him halfway on the translation issues, he hoped. _ _

__

__He caught Ricky's hand and pressed it to his cheek, and Ricky didn't freeze up. C.C. nodded. “I want to go with you, but we'd have to make some changes,” he said, voice hoarse through his tight throat. He would have stayed behind, if he had to, but he thought it might have killed him faster. “I'm not saying you have to stop, but you have to be more careful. I want, I don't know, veto power. I want to be quality control. I’m nixing torture and fire, incidentally, first thing. And you have to talk to me, OK? No grand gambits like this until I know where they're supposed to go, because if the destination involves you getting tortured and me setting a man on fire, or you lying back and thinking of the great state of California, that's the kind of thing I need to veto.”_ _

__

__Ricky laughed, giddy, although how much of that was the drugs, C.C. couldn't have said. “Deal.”_ _

__

__C.C. sagged into the footboard, dragging Ricky to his chest. “I'm going to hold you to that one, Goldsworth.” But his reservations about how much Ricky meant it—could possibly mean it—were blown to stumps in the blast of relief that swept through him, clear to his bones. They wanted the same thing. He wanted to be OK, but... with Ricky. He wanted to be around to make sure Ricky was OK. “Is this, can you do this, for a second?” He tightened his arm, jostling Ricky's shoulders, then let go._ _

__

__“All night.” Ricky pressed closer, all but in C.C.'s lap. He looped his arms, moving the right gingerly, around C.C.'s neck._ _

__

__“You have to tell me if you're not... comfortable.”_ _

__

__“I trust you,” Ricky said, which was either very touching or borderline meaningless as related to what C.C. had just said. He added, “What I have to do is keep you safe from those bats.”_ _

__

__C.C. shuddered ostentatiously, tucking his arms around Ricky's waist and his nose into Ricky's neck. He could only be so noble in a single night. “Wherever we go, can we please stay in a damn city? The human race has evolved beyond this whole blackout country nighttime business. There's no reason for it in the twentieth century.”_ _

__

__Ricky laughed, a thrum against C.C.'s forehead, and pushed his fingers through C.C.'s hair. “We can stay anywhere you want, but it's not a blackout. It's the whole other half of the world, dummy. Owls aren’t more sinister than songbirds just because you can't see them as well. It’s beautiful, if you let your eyes adjust—” He sat back suddenly, grip on C.C.'s neck and hair going ironclad. “Who _the fuck_ ,” he started. _ _

__

__C.C. hesitated in his reaction, beyond tightening an arm around Ricky's waist to stop him doing anything hasty. Ricky hadn't seemed to be hallucinating since they got him in the fresh air, but..._ _

__

__Someone knocked on the doorframe, managing to express sheepishness in three raps of knuckle on wood. C.C. gave his own hair a wrench whipping out of Ricky's grasp._ _

__

__“Hey... there... fellas.” Steven Lim tried out several casual poses in the doorway. “Didn't... I didn't mean to eavesdrop.”_ _

__

__“Lim.” Ricky slid out of C.C.'s lap as casually as Lim was posing. “You absolutely fucking did, and I'm going to stab you in the neck and watch you bleed out.”_ _

__

__“OK, well, I’m not sure you can reach my neck, but good luck with that.” Steven, in an act of either the greatest courage or the greatest foolhardiness C.C. had ever witnessed, walked into the room and flopped onto the bed, lying on his back on Ricky's far side. “I did accidentally hear you talking about leaving the country.” He rolled onto his side, cheek propped on his hand. “I think we should talk about Italy. I want to get into art theft.”_ _

__

__“What the fuck is happening right now?” Ricky mumbled, and C.C. shrugged, using the general conversation and motion as cover to do his belt back up. It was a little late to disguise what they'd been doing, but it couldn't hurt to put his best foot forward._ _

__

__“Steven,” he said, “are you under the impression you're going with us when we leave the country? Because that strikes me as a bad idea, both logistically and, um... existentially.”_ _

__

__“Uh-huh. We're stuck here together for a while, though, like you said. So we can talk about it.” He spoke with the frankly terrifying serenity of a man very sure he was going to win this argument._ _

__

__“C.C.” Ricky saw Steven’s serenity and raised him a borderline hypnotic drone. “If you start to think for so much as a second that your lost-cause puppy over here can bat his eyes into a ticket to the same continent, let me tell you—”_ _

__

__“We're a lot better at faking documents than either of you are anyway,” Lim continued, picking at a stray thread of embroidery on the rumpled comforter. “We'd be pulling our weight. If anything we'd be doing you two a favor.”_ _

__

__“ _Who_ ,” Ricky said, “are 'we'? You and what goddamn army?” _ _

__

__“Adam and Andrew and I. Well, not doing you a favor. Paying you back. We'll owe you big time after you help me break them out of prison.”_ _

__

__C.C. choked, stifling a laugh. “Tinsley,” Ricky protested._ _

__

__“I mean, unless you don't think you'd be good at breaking people out of prison. Pennhurst was kind of cheating, right? So if it sounds like too much for you, I get it,” Lim sailed on._ _

__

__“Rick,” C.C. said, catching his shirt again, a little giddy himself with this, with how clearly Lim didn't care, wasn't even going to mention it. “Baby, consider this. I'd really appreciate a nice prison break to ease me into crime as a lifestyle.”_ _

__

__Ricky sighed, loud enough to verge on a groan of frustration, and knocked his head into C.C.’s. C.C. could make out his smile, this close, one that said C.C. had won. “Shut up, Tinsley.”_ _

__

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Detailed warning: C.C. and Ricky engage in some pretty heavy making out, under such different understandings of why they’re doing it that consent is dubious at best for both of them.)
> 
> Someone should write their transcontinental crime spree adventure with Brent and the Worth It crew. Crowdsourcing that.* 
> 
> Big thanks to everyone for sticking around and reading this whole thing! Comments make my day - chime off and brighten my holiday season! 
> 
> *ETA: Alright, this whole AU is really sticking with me... It'd be a while coming and no promises, but suggestions are welcome for things you'd like to see in a sequel. I'm more into the "writing the fic" half of things than the "coming up with ideas" half... (Still, I don't feel possessive of anything here and it seems like Durch is super fine with other people in this sandbox, so LMK if anyone else writes a fic for these Crime Saga Boys! I'm into that.) I'm trying tumblr out, so hit me up there if you want - talk to me about crime and Western AUs! littleghostantenna.tumblr.com


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